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The Hermits 




Eev. CHARLES KL¥GSLEY. 

■ / * - 
• '( i,.: l jM£ 

NEW YO^fes^>OF W/ ' 

JOHN W. LOVELL"cT)MPANY, 

14 & 13 Vesey Street. 

Allen Bros., Sole Advertising Agents, 23 Union Square, New York, t 





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; LibraS* *| Lesson t0 Fathers. 

OF COKGRE88 By F. ANSTEY. 'g^ 2-J 

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pathetic." 

8ATUBDA Y REVIEW. 

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JOHN W, LOVELL CO., Publishers, 14 & 16 Vesey Street, New York. 



DEVOTED TO THE BEST OURREMT fe STANDARD UTERATU RE. | 



Vol.2, No. 39. Oct. 



Annual Subscription, 52 Numbers, $8.( 



THE HERMITS 



INTRODUCTION. 



St. Paphnutius used to tell a story which may 
serve as a fit introduction to this book. It contains 
a miniature sketch, not only of the social state of 
Egypt, but of the whole Roman Empire, and of the 
causes which led to the famous monastic movement 
in the beginning of the fifth century after Christ. 

Now Paphnutius was a wise and holy hermit, the 
Father, Abba, or Abbot of many monks; and after 
he had trained himself in the desert with all severity 
for many years, he besought God to show him which 
of His saints he was like. 

And it was said to him, " Thou art like a certain 
flute-player in the city." 

Then Paphnutius took his staff, and went into the 
city, and found that flute-player. But he 1 confessed 
that he was a drunkard and profligate, and had till 
lately got his living by robbery, and recollected not 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

having ever done one good deed. Nevertheless, when 
Paphnutius questioned him more closely, he said that 
he recollected once having found a holy maiden beset 
by robbers, and having delivered her, and brought her 
safe to town. And when Paphnutius questioned him 
more closely still, he said he recollected having done 
another deed. When he was a robber, he met once 
in the desert a beautiful woman ; and she prayed him 
to do her no harm, but to take her away with him as 
a slave, whither he would; for, said she, " I am fleeing 
from the apparitors and the Governor's curials for the 
last two years. My husband has been imprisoned 
for 300 pieces of gold, which he owes as arrears of 
taxes ; and has been often hung up, and often scourged ; 
and my three dear boys have been taken from me ; 
and I am wandering from place to place, and have 
been often caught myself and continually scourged ; 
and now I have been in the desert three days without 
food." 

And when the robber heard that, he took pity on 
her, and took her to his cave, and gave her 300 pieces 
of gold, and went with her to the city, and set her 
husband and her boys free. 

Then Paphnutius said, " I never did a deed like 
that : and yet I have not passed my life in ease and 
idleness. But now, my son, since God hath had such 
care of thee, have a care for thine own self." 

And when the musician heard that, he threw away 
the flutes which he held in his hand, and went with 
Paphnutius into the desert, and passed his life in hymns 
and prayer, changing his earthly music into heavenly ; 



IN TROD UC TION. j 

and after three years he went to heaven, and was at 
rest among the choirs of angels, and the ranks of the 
just. 

This story, as I said, is a miniature sketch of the 
state of the whole Roman Empire, and of the causes 
why men fled from it into the desert. Christianity 
had reformed the morals of individuals ; it had not 
reformed the Empire itself. That had sunk into a 
state only to be compared with the worst despotisms 
of the East. The Emperors, whether or not they 
called themselves Christian, like Constantine, knew 
no law save the basest maxims of the heathen world. 
Several of them were barbarians who had risen from 
the lowest rank merely by military prowess ; and who, 
half maddened by their sudden elevation, added to 
their native ignorance and brutality the pride, cunning, 
and cruelty of an Eastern Sultan. Rival Emperors, 
or Generals who aspired to be Emperors, devastated 
the world from Egypt to Britain by sanguinary civil 
wars. The government of the provinces had become 
altogether military. Torture was employed, not 
merely, as of old, against slaves, but against all ranks, 
without distinction. The people were exhausted by 
compulsory taxes, to be spent in wars which did not 
concern them, or in Court luxury in which they had 
no share. In the municipal towns, liberty and justice 
were dead. The curials, who answered somewhat to 
our aldermen, and who were responsible for the pay- 
ment of the public moneys, tried their best to escape 
the unpopular office, and when compelled to serve, 
wrung the money in self-defence out of the poorer 



a INTRODUCTION. 

inhabitants by every k ind of tyranny. The land was 
tilled either by oppressed and miserable peasants, or 
by gangs of slaves, in comparison with whose lot that 
even of the American negro was light. The great 
were served in their own households by crowds of 
slaves, better fed, doubtless, but even more miserable 
and degraded, than those who tilled the estates. Pri- 
vate profligacy among all ranks was such as cannot 
be described in these or in any modern pages. The 
regular clergy of the cities, though not of profligate 
lives, and for the most part, in accordance with pub- 
lic opinion, unmarried, were able to make no stand 
against the general corruption of the age, because — 
at least if we are to trust such writers as Jerome and 
Chrysostom — they were giving themselves up to am- 
bition and avarice, vanity and luxury, intrigue and 
party spirit, and had become the flatterers of fine ladies, 
" silly women laden with sins, ever learning, and 
never coming to the knowledge of the truth." Such 
a state of things not only drove poor creatures into 
the desert, like that fair woman whom the robber met, 
but it raised up bands of robbers over the whole of 
Europe, Africa, and the East, — men who, like Robin 
Hood and the outlaws of the Middle Age, getting no 
justice from man, broke loose from society, and while 
they plundered their oppressors, kept up some sort of 
rude justice and humanity among themselves. Many, 
too, fled, and became robbers, to escape the merciless 
conscription which carried off from every province 
the flower of the young men, to shed their blood on 
foreign battle-fields. In time, too, many of these con- 



INTRODUCTION. g 

scripts became monks, and the great monasteries of 
Scetis and Nitria were hunted over, again and again 
by officers and soldiers from the neighboring city of 
Alexandria in search of young men who had entered 
the " spiritual warfare " to escape the earthly one. 
And as a background to all this seething heap of 
decay, misrule, and misery, hung the black cloud of 
the barbarians, the Teutonic tribes from whom we 
derive the best part of our blood, ever coming nearer 
and nearer, waxing stronger and stronger, learning 
discipline and civilization by serving in the Roman 
armies, alternately the allies and the enemies of the 
Emperors, rising, some of them, to the highest offices 
of State, and destined, so the wisest Romans saw all 
the more clearly as the years rolled on, to be soon the 
conquerors of the Caesars, and the masters of the 
Western world. 

No wonder if that, in such a state of things, there 
arose such violent contrasts to the general weakness, 
such eccentric protests against the general wicked- 
ness, as may be seen in the figure of Abbot Paphnu- 
tius, when compared either with the poor man tortured 
in prison for his arrears of taxes, or with the Governor 
and the officials who tortured him. No wonder if, in 
such a state of things, the minds of men were stirred 
by a passion akin to despair, which ended in a new 
and grand form of suicide. It would have ended 
often, but for Christianity, in such an actual despair as 
that which had led in past ages more than one noble 
Roman to slay himself, when he lost all hope for the 
Republic. Christianity taught those who despaired 



i o INTRO D UCTION. 

of society, of the world — in one word, of the Roman 
Empire, and all that it had done for men — to hope at 
least for a kingdom of God after death. It taught 
those who, had they been heathens and brave enough, 
would have slain themselves to escape out of a world 
which was no place for honest men, that the body 
must be kept alive, if for no other reason, at least for 
the sake of the immortal soul, doomed, according to 
its works, to endless bliss or endless torment. 

But that the world — such, at least, as they saw it 
then — was doomed, Scripture and their own reason 
taught them. They did not merely believe, but see, 
in the misery and confusion, the desolation and de- 
gradation around them, that all that was in the world, 
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride 
of life, was not of the Father, but of the world ; that 
the world was passing away, and the lust thereof, and 
that only he who did the will of God could abide for 
ever. They did not merely believe, but saw, that the 
wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all 
unrighteousness of men ; and that the world in general 
— above all, its kings and rulers, the rich and luxurious 
— were treasuring up for themselves wrath, tribulation, 
and anguish, against a day of wrath and revelation 
of the righteous judgment of God, who would render 
to every man according to his works. 

That they were correct in their judgment of the 
world about them, contemporary history proves abun- 
dantly. That they were correct, likewise, in believing 
that some fearful judgment was about to fall on man, 
is proved by the fact that it did fall ; that the first half 



INTRODUCTION. H 

of the fifth century saw, not only the sack of Rome, 
but the conquest and desolation of the greater part of 
the civilized world, amid bloodshed, misery, and mis- 
rule, which seemed to turn Europe into a chaos, — which 
would have turned it into a chaos, had there not been 
a few men left who still felt it possible and necessary 
to believe in God and to work righteousness. 

Under these terrible forebodings, men began to flee 
from a doomed world, and try to be alone with God, 
if by any means they might save each man his own 
soul in that dread day. 

Others, not Christians, had done the same before 
them. Among all the Eastern nations men had ap- 
peared, from time, to time, to whom the things seen 
were but a passing phantom, the things unseen the 
only true and eternal realities ; who, tormented alike 
by the awfulness of the infinite unknown, and by the 
petty cares and low passions of the finite mortal life 
which they knew but too well, had determined to 
renounce the latter, that they might give themselves 
up to solving the riddle of the former ; and be at 
peace ; and free, at least, from the tyranny of their 
own selves. Eight hundred years before St. Antony 
fled into the desert, that young Hindoo rajah, whom 
men call Buddha now, had fled into the forest, leaving 
wives and kingdom, to find rest for his soul. He 
denounced caste ; he preached poverty, asceticism, 
self-annihilation. He founded a religion, like that of 
the old hermits, democratic and ascetic, with its con- 
vents, saint-worships, pilgrimages, miraculous relics, 
rosaries, and much more, which strangely anticipates 



12 INTRODUC TIOX. 

the monastic religion ; and his followers, to this day, 
are more numerous than those of any other creed. 

Brahmins, too, had given themselves up to penance 
and mortification till they believed themselves able, 
like Kehama, to have gained by self-torture the 
right to command, not nature merely, but the gods 
themselves. Among the Jews the Essenes by the 
Dead Sea, and the Therapeutae in Egypt, had 
formed ascetic communities, the former more "prac- 
tical," the latter more " contemplative : " but both 
alike agreed in the purpose of escaping from the 
world into a life of poverty and simplicity, piety and 
virtue ; and among the countless philosophic sects 
of Asia, known to ecclesiastical writers as " heretics," 
more than one had professed, and doubtless often 
practised, the same abstraction from the world, 
the same contempt of the flesh. The very Neo 
Platonists of Alexandria, while they derided the 
Christian asceticism, found themselves forced to 
affect, like the hapless Hypatia, a sentimental and 
pharisaic asceticism of their own. This phase of 
sight and feeling, so strange to us now, was common, 
nay, primaeval, among the Easterns. The day was 
come when it should pass from the East into the 
West. And Egypt, " the mother of wonders ; " the 
parent of so much civilization and philosophy, both 
Greek and Roman ; the half-way resting-place through 
which not merely the merchandise, but the wisdom 
of the East had for centuries passed into the Roman 
Empire ; a land more ill-governed, too, and more 
miserable, in spite of its fertility, because more de- 



INTRODUCTION. 



*3 



fenceless and effeminate, than most other Roman 
possessions — was the country in which naturally, and 
as it were of hereditary right, such a movement would 
first appear. 

Accordingly it was discovered, about the end of the 
fourth century, that the mountains and deserts of 
Egypt were full of Christian men who had fled out of 
the dying world, in the hope of attaining everlasting 
life. Wonderful things were told of their courage, 
their abstinence, their miracles : and of their virtues 
also ; of their purity, their humility, their helpfulness, 
and charity to each other and to all. They called 
each other, it was said, brothers ; and they lived up 
to that sacred name, forgotten, if ever known, by the 
rest of the Roman Empire. Like the Apostolic 
Christians in the first fervor of their conversion, they 
had all things in common ; they lived at peace with 
each other, under a mild and charitable rule ; and 
kept literally those commands of Christ which all the 
rest of the world explained away to nothing. 

The news spread. It chimed in with all that was 
best, as well as with much that was questionable, in 
the public mind. That men could be brothers ; that 
they could live without the tawdry luxury, the taste- 
less and often brutal amusements, the low sensuality, 
the base intrigue, the bloody warfare, which was the 
accepted lot of the many ; that they could find time 
to look stedfastly at heaven and hell as awful realities, 
which must be faced some day, which had best be 
faced at once ; this, just as much as curiosity about 
their alleged miracles, and the selfish longing to rival 



t4 INTRODUCTION. 

them in superhuman powers, led many of the most 
virtuous and the most learned men of the time to visit 
them, and ascertain the truth. Jerome, Ruffinus, 
Evagrius, Sulpicius Severus, went to see them, under- 
going on the way the severest toils and dangers, and 
brought back reports of mingled truth and falsehood, 
specimens of which will be seen in these pages. 
Travelling in those days was a labor, if not of 
necessity, then surely of love. Palladius, for instance, 
found it impossible to visit the Upper Thebaid, and 
Syene, and that " infinite multitude of monks, whose 
fashions of life no one would believe, for they surpass 
human life ; who to this day raise the dead, and walk 
upon the waters, like Peter ; and whatsoever the 
Saviour did by the holy Apostles, He does now by 
them. But because it would be very dangerous if 
we went beyond Lyco " (Lycopolis ?), on account 
of the inroad of robbers, he " could not see those 
saints." 

The holy men and women of whom he wrote, he 
says, he did not see without extreme toil ; and seven 
times he and his companions were nearly lost. Once 
they walked through the desert five days and nights, 
and were almost worn out by hunger and thirst. 
Again, they fell on rough marshes, where the sedge 
pierced their feet, and caused intolerable pain, while 
they were almost killed with the cold. Another time, 
they stuck in the mud up to their waists, and cried with 
David, " I am come into deep mire, where no ground 
is," Another time they waded for four days through 
the flood of the Nile by paths almost swept away. 



THE HERMITS. 13 

Another time they met robbers on the seashore, 
coming to Diolcos, and were chased by them for ten 
miles. Another time they were all but upset and 
drowned in crossing the Nile. Another time, in the 
marshes of Mareotis, " where paper grows," they were 
cast on a little desert island, and remained three days 
and nights in the open air, amid great cold and 
showers, for it was the season of Epiphany. The 
eighth peril, he says, is hardly worth mentioning — 
but once, when they went to Nitria, they came on a 
great hollow, in which many crocodiles had remained, 
when the waters retired from the fields. Three of 
them lay along the bank ; and the monks went up to 
them, thinking them dead, whereon the crocodiles 
rushed at them. But when they called loudly on the 
Lord, " the monsters, as if turned away by an angel," 
shot themselves into the water ; while they' ran on to 
Nitria, meditating on the words of Job, " Seven times 
shall He deliver thee from trouble ; and in the eighth 
there shall no evil touch thee." 

The great St. Athanasius, fleeing from persecution, 
had taken refuge among these monks. He carried the 
report of their virtues to Treves in Gaul, and wrote a 
life of Antony, the perusal of which was a main 
agent in the conversion of St. Augustine. Hilarion 
(a remarkable personage, whose history will be told 
hereafter) carried their report and their example like- 
wise into Palestine ; and from that time Judaea, deso- 
late and seemingly accursed by the sin of the Jewish 
people, became once more the Holy Land ; the place 
of pilgrimage ; whose ruins, whose very soil, were 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

kept sacred by hermits, the guardians of the footsteps 
of Christ. 

In Rome itself the news produced an effect which, 
to the thoughtful mind, is altogether tragical in its 
nobleness. The Roman aristocracy was deprived 
of all political power ; it had been decimated, too, 
with horrible cruelty only one generation before,* 
by Valentinian and his satellites, on the charges 
of profligacy, treason, and magic. Mere rich men, 
they still lingered on, in idleness and luxury, without 
art, science, true civilization of any kind ; followed by 
long trains of slaves ; punishing a servant with three 
hundred stripes if he were too long in bringing hot 
water ; weighing the fish, or birds, or dormice put on 
their tables, while secretaries stood by, with tablets to 
record all ; hating learning as they hated poison ; 
indulging at the baths in conduct which had best be 
left undescribed ; and " complaining that they were 
not born among the Cimmerians, if amid their golden 
fans a fly should perch upon the silken fringes, or a 
slender ray of the sun should pierce through the awn- 
ing ; " while, if they " go any distance to see their 
estates in the country, or to hunt at a meeting col- 
lected for their amusement by others, they think that 
they have equalled the marches of Alexander or of 
Caesar. 

On the wives, widows, and daughters of men of 
this stamp — and not half their effeminacy and base- 

* About A. D. 368 See the details in Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 
xxviii. 



INTRODUCTION. 



*7 



ness, as the honest rough old soldier Ammianus 
Marcellinus describes it, has been told here — the 
news brought from Egypt worked with wondrous 
potency. 

Women of the highest rank awoke suddenly to the 
discovery that life was given them for nobler purposes 
than that of frivolous enjoyment and tawdry vanity. 
Despising themselves ; despising the husbands to 
whom they had been wedded in loveless marriages de 
convenance, whose infidelities they had too often to 
endure : they, too, fled from a world which had 
sated and sickened them. They freed their slaves; 
gave away their wealth to found hospitals and to feed 
the poor; and in voluntary poverty and mean garments 
they followed such men as Jerome and Ruffinus across 
the seas, to visit the new found saints of the Egyptian 
desert, and to end their days, in some cases, in doleful 
monasteries in Palestine. The lives of such women 
as those of the Anician house ; the lives of Marcella 
and Furia, of Paula, of the Melanias, and the rest it is 
not my task to write. They must be told by a woman, 
not by a man. We may blame those ladies, if we 
will for neglecting their duties. We may sneer, if we 
will, at the weaknesses — the aristocratic pride, the 
spiritual vanity — which we fancy that we discover. 
We may lament,and in that we shall not be wrong 
the influence which such men as Jerome obtained 
over them ; the example and precursor of so much 
which has since then been ruinous to family and so- 
cial life : but we must confess that the fault lay not 
with the ladies themselves, but with their fathers. 



r g INTRODUCTION. 

husbands, and brothers ; we must confess that in 
these women the spirit of the old Roman matrons, 
which seemed to have been so long dead, flashed up 
for one splendid moment, ere it sunk into the dark- 
ness of the Middle Age : that in them woman asserted 
( however strangely and fantastically ) her moral equal- 
ity with man ; and that at the very moment when 
monasticism was consigning her to contempt, almost 
to abhorrence, as " the noxious animal," the " fragile 
vessel," the cause of man's fall at first, and of his sin 
and misery ever since, woman showed the monk ( to 
his naively-confessed suiprise), that she could dare 
and suffer, and adore as well as he. 

But the movement, having once seized the Roman 
Empire, grew and spread irresistibly. It was accepted, 
supported, preached, practised, by every great man of 
the time. Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom, Gregory of 
Nazianzen in the East, Jerome, Augustine, Ruffinus > 
Evagrius, Fulgentius Sulpicius Severus, Vincent of 
Lerinsjohn Cassian,Martin of Tours, Salvian,Caesarius 
of Aries, were all monks, or as much of monks as their 
duties 'would allow them to be. Ambrose of Milan 
though no monk himself, was the fervent preacher of 
the careful legislator for, monasticism male and female. 
Throughout the whole Roman Empire, in the course 
of a century, had spread hermits ( or dwellers in the 
desert), anchorites ( retired from the world), or monks 
( dwellers alone ). The three names grew afterwards 
to designate three different orders of ascetics. The 
hermits remained through the Middle Ages those who 
dwelt deserts ; the anchorites, or " ankers " of the 



INTRODUCTION: j 9 

English Middle Age, seem generally to have inhab- 
ited cells built in, or near the church walls ; the 
name of " monks" was transferred from those who 
dwelt alone to those who dwelt in regular commun- 
ities, under a fixed government. But the three names 
at first were interchangeable ; the three modes of life 
alternated, often in the same man. The life of all 
three was the same, — celibacy, poverty, good deeds 
towards their fellow-men ; self-restraint, and some- 
times self-torture of every kind, to atone ( as far as 
might be ) for the sins committed after baptism : and 
the mental food of all three was the same likewise ; 
continued meditation upon the vanity of the world, 
the sinfulness of the flesh, the glories of heaven, and 
the horrors of hell : but with these the old hermits 
combined — to do them justice — a personal faith in God, 
and a personal love for Christ, which those who sneer 
at them would do well to copy. 

Over all Europe, even to Ireland,* the same pat- 
tern of Christian excellence repeated itself with 
strange regularity, till it became the only received 
pattern ; and to " enter religion," or " be converted," 
meant simply to become a monk. 

Of the authentic biographies of certain of these 

* In the Celtic Irish Church, there seems to have been no other 
pattern. The hermits who became abbots, with their monks, were the 
only teachesr of the people — one had almost said, the only Christians. 
Whence, as early as the sixth century, if not the fifth, they, and their 
disciples of Iona and Scotland, derived their pecular tonsure, their use 
of bells, their Eastern mode of keeping their Paschal feast, and other 
peculiarities, seemingly without the intervention of Rome, is a mystery 
still unsolved. 



2o INTRODUCTION. 

Djcii, a few specimens are given in this volume. If 
they shall seem to any reader uncouth, or even 
absurd, he must remember that they are the only ex- 
isting and the generally contemporaneous histories 
of men who exercised for I, 300 years an enormous 
influence over the whole of Christendom ; who exer- 
cise a vast influence over the greater part of it to 
this day. They are the biographies of men who were 
regarded, during their lives and after their deaths, as 
divine and inspired prophets ; and who were wor- 
shipped with boundless trust and admiration by mill- 
ions of human beings. Their fame and power were 
not created by the priesthood. The priesthood rather 
leant on them, than they on it. They occupied a post 
analogous to that of the old Jewish prophets ; always 
independent of, sometimes opposed to, the regular 
clergy ; and dependent altogether on public opinion 
and the suffrage of the multitude. When Christiani- 
ity, after three centuries of repression and persecution, 
emerged triumphant as the creed of the whole civil- 
ized world, it had become, what their lives describe. 
The model of religious life for the fifth century, it re- 
mained a model for succeeding centuries ; on th e 
lives of St. Antony and his compeers were founded 
the whole literature of saintly biographies ; the whole 
popular conception of the universe, and of man's rela- 
tion to it ; the whole science of daemonology, with its 
peculiar literature, its peculiar system of criminal 
jurisprudence. And their influence did not cease at 
the Reformation among Protestant divines. The 
influence of these Lives of the Hermit Fathers 



INTR OD UC TION. 2 1 

is as much traceable even to style and language, 
in " The Pilgrim's Progress " as in the last Papal 
Allocution. The great hermits of Egypt were 
not merely the founders of that vast monastic system 
which influenced the whole politics, and wars, and 
social life, as well as the whole religion, of the Middle 
Age ; they were a school of philosophers ( as they 
rightly called themselves ) who altered the whole 
current of human thought. 

Those who wish for a general notion of the men, 
and of their time, will find all that they require (set 
forth from different points of view, though with the 
same honesty and learning) in Gibbon ; in M. de 
Montalembert's " Moines d'Occident," in Dean Mil- 
man's " History of Christianity " and " Latin Chris- 
tianity," and in Ozanam's " Etudes Germaniques." * 
But the truest notion of the men is to be got, after 
all, from the original documents ; and especially from 
that curious collection of them by the Jesuit Ros- 
weyde, commonly known as the" Lives of the Hermit 
Fathers." f 

After an acquaintance of now five-and-twenty 
years with this wonderful treasury of early Christian 
mythology, to which all fairy tales are dull and 
meagre, I am almost inclined to sympathize with 
M. de Montalembert's questions, — " Who is so igno- 
rant, or so unfortunate, as not to have devoured these 



* A book which, from its bearing on present problems , well de- 
serves translation. 

t " Vitae Patrum." Published at Antwerp, 1628. 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

tales of the heroic age of monachism ? Who has not 
contemplated, if not with the eyes of faith, at least 
with the admiration inspired by an incontrollable 
greatness of soul, the struggles of these athletes of 
penitence ? . . . . Everything is to be found there — 
variety, pathos, the sublime and simple epic of a race 
of men, naifs as children, and strong as giants." 
In whatever else one may differ from M. de Monta- 
lembert — and it is always painful to differ from one 
whose pen has been always the faithful servant of 
virtue and piety, purity and chivalry, loyalty and 
liberty, and whose generous appreciation of England 
and the English is the more honorable to him, by 
reason of an utter divergence in opinion, which in 
less wide and noble spirits produces only antipathy 
— one must at least agree with him in his estimate of 
the importance of these " Lives of the Fathers," not 
only to the ecclesiologist, but to the psychologist, and 
the historian. Their influence, subtle, often trans- 
formed and modified again and again, but still 
potent from its very subtleness, is being felt around 
us in many a puzzle — educational, social, political ; 
and promises to be felt still more during the coming 
generation ; and to have studied thoroughly one of 
them — say the life of St. Antony by St. Athanasius — 
is to have had in our hands (whether we knew it or 
not) the key to many a lock, which just now refuses 
either to be tampered with or burst open. 

I have determined, therefore, to give a few of 
these lives, translated as literally as possible. Thus 
the reader will then have no reason to fear a garbled 



INTRODUCTION. 



2 3 



or partial account of personages so difficult to con- 
ceive or understand. He will be able to see the men 
as wholes ; to judge (according to his light) of their 
merits and,, their defects. The very style of their 
biographers (which is copied as literally as is com- 
patible with the English tongue) will teach him, if 
he be wise, somewhat of the temper and habits of 
thought of the age in which they lived ; and one of 
these original documents, with its honesty, its vivid 
touches of contemporary manners, its intense earnest- 
ness, will give, perhaps, a more true picture of the 
whole hermit movement than (with all respect, be it 
said) the most brilliant general panorama. 

It is impossible to give in this series all the lives 
of the early hermits — even of those contained in Ros- 
weyde. This volume will contain, therefore, only the 
most important and most famous lives of the Egyp- 
tian, Syrian, and Persian hermits, followed, perhaps, 
by a few later biographies from Western Europe, as 
proofs that the hermit-type, as it spread toward the 
Atlantic, remained still the same as in the Egyptian 
desert. 

Against one modern mistake the reader must be 
warned ; the theory, namely, that these biographies 
were written as religious romances ; edifying, but 
not historical; to be admired, but not believed. 
There is not the slightest evidence that such was the 
case. The lives of these, and most other saints (cer- 
tainly those in this volume), were written by men who 
believed the stories themselves, after such inquiry into 
the facts as they deemed necessary ; who knew that 



24 THE HERMITS. 

others would believe them : and who intended that 
they should do so ; and the stories were believed 
accordingly, and taken as matter of fact for the most 
practical purposes by the whole of Christendom. The 
forging of miracles, like the forging of cnarters, for 
the honor of a particular shrine, or the advantage 
of a particular monastery, belongs to a much later 
and much worse age ; and, whatsoever we may 
think of the taste of the authors of these lives, or 
of their faculty for judging of evidence, we must at 
least give them credit for being earnest men, in- 
capable of what would have been in their eyes, and 
ought to be in ours, not merely falsehood, but im- 
piety. Let the reader be sure of this — that these 
documents would not have exercised their enormous 
influence on the human mind, had there not been 
in them, under whatever accidents of credulity, and 
even absurdity, an element of sincerity, virtue, and 
nobility. 



THE HERMITS. 



25 



SAINT ANTONY. 

The life of Antony, by Athanasius, is perhaps the 
most important of all these biographies ; because 
first, Antony was generally held to be the first great 
example and preacher of the hermit life ; because 
next, Athanasius, his biographer, having by his con- 
troversial writings established the orthodox faith as 
it is now held alike by Romanists, Greeks, and Prot- 
estants, did, by his publication of the life of Antony, 
establish the hermit life as the ideal (in his opinion) 
of Christian excellence ; and lastly, because that bi- 
ography exercised a most potent influence on the 
conversion of St. Augustine, the greatest thinker 
(always excepting St. Paul) whom the world had seen 
since Plato, whom the world was to see again till 
Lord Bacon ; the theologian and philosopher (for he 
was the latter, as well as the former, in the strictest 
sense) to whom the world owes, not only the formu- 
lizing of the whole scheme of the universe for a 
thousand years after his death, but Calvinism (wrongly 
so called) in all its forms, whether held by the Augus- 
tinian party in the Church of Rome, or the " Re- 
formed" Churches of Geneva, France, and Scot- 
land. 



26 THE HERMITS. 

Whether we have the exact text of the document 
as Athanasius wrote it to the " Foreign Brethren" — 
probably the religious folk of Treves — in the Greek 
version published by Heschelius in 1611, and in cer- 
tain earlier Greek texts ; whether the Latin transla- 
tion attributed to Evagrius, which has been well 
known for centuries past in the Latin Church, be ac- 
tually his ; whether it be exactly that of which St. 
Jerome speaks, and whether it be exactly that which 
St. Augustine saw, are questions which it is now im- 
possible to decide. But of the genuineness of the 
life in its entirety we have no right to doubt, contrary 
to the verdicts of the most distinguished scholars, 
whether Protestant or Catholic ; and there is fair 
reason to suppose that the document (allowing for 
errors and variations of transcribers) which I have 
tried to translate, is that of which the great St. 
Augustine speaks in the eighth book of his Confes- 
sions. 

He tells us that he was reclaimed at last from a 
profligate life (the thought of honorable marriage 
seems never to have entered his mind), by meeting, 
while practising as a rhetorician at Treves, an old 
African acquaintance, named Potitanius, an officer of 
rank. What followed no words can express so well 
as those of the great genius himself. 

" When I told him that I was giving much attention 
to those writings (the Epistles of Paul), we began to 
talk, and he to tell, of Antony, the monk of Egypt, 
whose name was then very famous among thy 



THE HERMITS. 



27 



servants : * but was unknown to us till that moment. 
When he discovered that, he spent some time over 
the subject, detailing his virtues, and wondering at 
our ignorance. We were astounded at hearing such 
well-attested marvels of him, so recent and almost 
contemporaneous, wrought in the right faith of the 
Catholic Church. We all wondered : we, that they 
were so great ; and he, that we had not heard of them. 
Thence his discourse ran on to those flocks of hermit- 
cells, and the morals of thy sweetness, and the fruitful 
deserts of the wilderness, of which we knew nought. 
There was a monastery, too, at Milan, full of good 
brethren, outside the city walls, under the tutelage of 
Ambrosius, and we knew nothing of it. He went on 
still speaking, and we listened intently; and it befell 
that he told us how, I know not when, he and three of 
his mess companions at Treves, while the emperor 
was engaged. in an afternoon spectacle in the circus, 
went out for a walk in the gardens round the walls : 
and as they walked there in pairs, one with him alone, 
and the two others by themselves, they parted. And 
those two, straying about, burst into a cottage, where 
dwelt certain servants of thine, poor in spirit, of such 
as is the kingdom of heaven ; and there found a book, 
in which was written the life of Antony. One of 
them began to read it, and to wonder, and to be 
warmed ; and, as he read, to think of taking up such 
a life, and leaving' the warfare of this world to serve 
thee. Now, he was one of those whom they call 

* He is addressing our Lord. 



2 3 THE HERMITS. 

Managers of Affairs* Then, suddenly filled with holy 
love and sober shame, angered at himself, he cast his 
eyes on his friend, and said, ' Tell me, prithee, with all 
these labors of ours, whither are we trying to get ? 
What are we seeking ? For what are we soldiering ? 
Can we have a higher hope in the palace, than to 
become friends of the emperor ? And when there, 
what is not frail and full of dangers ? And through 
how many dangers we do not arrive at a greater 
danger still ? And how long will that last ? But if I 
choose to become a friend of God, I can do it here 
and now.' He spoke thus, and, swelling in the labor- 
pangs of a new life, he fixed his eyes again on the 
pages and read, and was changed inwardly as thou 
lookedst on him, and his mind was stripped of the 
world, as soon appeared. For while he read, and 
rolled over the billows of his soul, he shuddered and 
hesitated from time to time, and resolved better things ; 
and already thine, he said to his friend, ' I have already 
torn my self from that hope of ours, and have settled 
to serve God ; and this I begin from this hour, in this 
very place. If you do not like to imitate me, do not 
oppose me.' He replied that he would cling to his 
companion in such a great service and so great a war- 
fare. And both, now thine, began building, at their 
own cost, the tower of leaving all things and following 
thee. Then Potitanus, and the man who was talking 
with him elsewhere in the garden, seeking them, came 
to the same place, and warned them to return, as the 

* " Agentes in rebus." On the Emperor's staff ? 



THE HERMITS. 



29 



sun was getting low. They, however, told their resolu- 
tion, and how it had sprung up and taken strong hold 
in them, and entreated the others not to give them 
pain. They, not altered from their former mode of life, 
yet wept (as he told us) for themselves ; and con- 
gratulated them piously, and commended themselves 
to their prayers ; and then dragging their hearts along 
the earth, went back to the palace. But the others, 
fixing their hearts on heaven, remained in the 
cottage. And both of them had affianced brides, 
who, when they heard this, dedicated their virginity 
to thee." 

The part which this incident played in St. Augus- 
tine's own conversion must be told hereafter in his 
life. But the scene which his master-hand has drawn 
is not merely the drama of his own soul or of these 
two young officers, but of a whole empire. It is, as I 
said at first, the tragedy and suicide of the old empire ; 
and the birth-agony of which he speaks was not that 
of an individual soul here or there, but of a whole new 
world, for good and evil. The old Roman soul was 
dead within, the body of it dead without. Patriotism, 
duty, purpose of life, save pleasure, money, and in- 
trigue, had perished. The young Roman officer had 
nothing left for which to fight ; the young Roman 
gentleman nothing left for which to be a citizen and 
an owner of lands. Even the old Roman longing 
(which was also a sacred duty) of leaving an heir to 
perpetuate his name, and serve the state as his fathers 
had before him — even that was gone. Nothing was 
left, with the many, but selfishness, which could rise 



3° 



THE HERMITS. 



at best into the desire of saving every man his own 
soul, and so transform worldliness into other-worldli- 
ness. The old empire could do nothing more for 
man ; and knew that it could do nothing ; and lay 
down in the hermit's cell to die. 

Treves was then " the second metropolis of the 
empire," boasting, perhaps, even then, as it boasts 
still, that it was standing thirteen hundred years 
before Rome was built. Amid the low hills, pierced 
by rocky dells, and on a strath of richest soil, it had 
grown, from the mud-hut town of the Treviri, into a 
noble city of palaces, threatres, baths, triumphal 
arches, on either side the broad and clear Moselle. 
The bridge which Augustus had thrown across the 
river, four hundred years before the times of hermits 
and of saints, stood like a cliff through all barbarian 
invasions, through all the battles and sieges of the 
Middle Age, till it was blown up by the French in the 
wars of Louis XIV., and nought remains save the 
huge piers of black lava stemming the blue stream ; 
while up and down the dwindled city, the colossal 
fragments of Roman work — the Black Gate, the 
Heidenthurm, the baths, the Basilica or Hall of Jus- 
tice, now a Lutheran church — stand out half ruined, 
like the fossil bones of giants amid the works of 
weaker, though of happier times ; while the amphi- 
theatre was till late years planted thick with vines, 
fattening in soil drenched with the blood of thousands. 
Treves had been the haunt of emperor after emperor, 
men wise and strong, cruel and terrible ; — of Con- 
stantius, Constantine the Great, Julian, Valentinian, 



THE HERMITS. 



3 1 



Valens ; and lastly, when Potitianus's friends found 
those poor monks in the garden* of Gratian, the gentle 
hunter who thought day and night on sport, till his 
arrows were said to be instinct with life, was holding 
his military court within the walls of Treves, or at 
that hunting palace on the northern downs, where still 
on the bath-floors lie the mosaics of hare and deer, and 
boar and hound, on which the feet of Emperors trod 
full fifteen hundred years ago. 

Still glorious outwardly, like the Roman empire 
itself, was that great city of Treves ; but inwardly it 
was full of rottenness and weakness. The Roman 
empire had been, in spite of all its crimes, for 
four hundred years the salt of the earth : but now 
the salt had lost its savor; and in one generation 
more it would be trodden under foot and cast upon 
the dunghill, and another empire would take its place, 
— the empire, not of brute strength and self-indul- 
gence, but of sympathy and self-denial, — an empire, 
not of Caesars, but of hermits. Already was Gratian 
the friend and pupil of St. Ambrose of Milan ; already 
too, was he persecuting, though not to the death, here- 
tics and heathens. Nay, some fifty years before (if 
the legend can be in the least trusted ) had St. Hel- 

* St. Augustine says, that Potitianus's adventure at Treves happen- 
ed " I know not when." His own conversation with Potitianus must 
have happened about a. d. 385, for he was baptized April 25. A. D. 
387.' He does not mention the name of Potitianus's emperor: but as 
Gratian was Augustus from A. D. 367 to A. D. 375, and actual Emperor 
of the West till a. D. 383, and as Treves was his usual residence, 
he is most probably the person meant : but if not, then his father 
Valentinian. 



3^ 



THE HERMITS. 



ena, the mother of Constantine the Great, returned 
from Palestine, bearing with her — so men believed — 
not only the miraculously discovered cross of Christ, 
but the seamless coat which he had worn ; and, turn- 
ing her palace into a church, deposited the holy coat 
therein : where — so some believe — it remains until 
this day. Men felt that a change was coming, but 
whence it would come or how terrible it would be, 
they could not tell. It was to be, as the prophet says, 
" like the bulging out of a great wall, which bursteth 
suddenly in an instant." In the very amphitheatre 
where Gratian sat that afternoon, with all the folk of 
Treves about him, watching, it may be, lions andante- 
lopes from Africa slaughtered — it may be criminals 
tortured to death — another and uglier sight had been 
twice seen some seventy years before. Constantine, so- 
called the Great, had there exhibited his " Frankish 
sports," the " magnificent spectacle," the famous pun- 
ishments as his flattering court-historians called them : 
thousands of Frank prisoners, many of them of noble, 
and even of royal blood, torn to pieces by wild beasts, 
while they stood fearless, smiling with folded arms ; 
and when the wild beasts were gorged, and slew no 
more, wenpons were put into the hands of the sur- 
vivors, and they were bidden to fight to the death for 
the amusement of their Roman lords. But fight they 
would not against their own flesh and blood : and as 
for life, all chance of that was long gone by. So every 
man fell joyfully upon his brother's sword, and, dying 
like a German, spoilt the sport of the good folk of 
Treves. And it seemed for a while as if there were 



THE HERMITS. 



33 



no God in heaven who cared to avenge such deeds of 
blood. For the kinsmen, it may be the very sons, of 
those Franks were now in Gratian's pay ; and the 
Frank Merobaudes was his " Count of the Domestics," 
and one of his most successful and trusted generals ; 
and all seemed to go well, and brute force and craft 
to triumph on the earth. 

And yet those two young staff officers, when they 
left the imperial court for the hermit's cell, judged, on 
the whole, prudently and well, and chose the better 
part when they fled from the world to escape the 
" dangers " of ambition, and the " greater danger still" 
of success. For they escaped, not merely from vice 
and worldliness, but, as the event proved, from immi- 
nent danger of death if they kept the loyalty which 
they had sworn to their emperor ; or the worse evil of 
baseness if they turned traitors to him to save their 
lives. 

For little thought Gratian, as he sat in that amphi- 
theatre, that the day was coming when he, the hunter 
of game — and of heretics — would be hunted in his 
turn ; when, deserted by his army, detrayed by Mero- 
baudes — whose elder kinsfolk were not likely to have 
kept him ignorant of " the Frankish sports" — he 
should flee pitiably towards Italy, and die by a Ger- 
man hand ; some say near Lyons, some say near 
Belgrade, calling on Ambrose with his latest breath.* 
Little thought, too, the good, folk of Treves, as they 
sat beneath the vast awning that afternoon, that 

* See the excellent article on Gratian in Smith's dictionary, by 
Mr. Means. 

3 



31 



THE HERMITS. 



within the next half century a day of vengeance was 
coming for them, which should teach them that there 
was a God who " maketh inquisition for blood ; " a day 
when Treves should be sacked in blood and flame by 
those very " barbarian" Germans whom they fancied 
their allies — or their slaves. And least of all did they 
fancy that, when that great destruction fell upon their 
city, the only element in it which would pass safely 
through the fire and rise again, and raise their city to 
new glory and power, was that which was represented 
by those poor hermits in the garden-hut outside. Lit- 
tle thought they that above the awful arches of the 
Black Gate — as if in mockery of the Roman Power — 
a lean anchorite would take his stand, Simeon of Syr- 
acuse by name, a monk of Mount Sinai, and there 
imitate, in the far West, the austerities of St. Simeon 
Stylites in the East, and be enrolled in the new Pan- 
theon, not of Caesars, but of Saints. 

Under the supposed patronage of those Saints, 
Treves rose again out of its ruins. It gained its four 
great abbeys of St. Maximus (on the site of Constan- 
tine's palace ) ; St. Matthias, in the crypt whereof the 
bodies of the monks never decay ; * St. Martin ; and 
St. Mary of the Four Martyrs, where four soldiers of 
the famous Theban legion are said to have suffered 
martyrdom by the house of the Roman prefect. It 
had its cathedral of St. Peter and St. Helena, supposed 
to be built out of St. Helena's palace ; its exquisite 
Liebfrauenkirche ; its palace of the old Archbishops, 

* I cannot explain this fact : but I have seen it with my own eyes. 



THE HERMITS. 



35 



mighty potentates of this world, as well as of the 
kingdom of heaven. For they were princes, arch- 
chancellors, electors of the empire, owning many a 
league of fertile land, governing, and that kindly and 
justly, towns and villages of Christian men, and now 
and then going out to war, at the head of their own 
knights and yeomen, in defence of their lands, and of 
the saints whose servants and trustees they were ; and 
so became, according to their light and their means, 
the salt of that land for many generations. 

And after a while that salt, too, lost its savor, and 
was, in its turn, trodden under foot. The French 
republican wars swept away the ecclesiastical consti- 
tution and the wealth of the ancient city. The cathe- 
dral and churches were stripped of relics, of jewels, 
of treasures of early art. The Prince-bishop's palace 
is a barrack : so was lately St. Maximus's shrine ; St. 
Martin's a china manufactory, and St. Matthias's a 
school. Treves belongs to Prussia, and not to " Holy 
Church ; % ' and all the old splendors of the " empire 
of the saints " are almost as much ruinate as those of 
the " empire of the Romans." So goes the world, 
because there is a living God. 

" The old order changeth, giving place to the new; 
And God fulfils himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 

But though palaces and amphitheatres be gone, 
the gardens outside still bloom on as when Potitianus 
and his friends wandered through them, perpetual as 
Nature's self ; and perpetual as Nature, too, endures 



36 



THE HERMITS 



whatever is good and true of that afternoon's work, 
and of that finding of the legend of St. Antony in 
the monk's cabin, which fixed the destiny of the great 
genius of the Latin Church. 

The story of St. Antony, as it has been handed 
down to us,* runs thus : — 

The life and conversation of our holy Father An- 
tony, written and sent to the monks in foreign parts 
by our father among the saints, Athanasius, Arch- 
bishop of Alexandria. 

You have begun a noble rivalry with the monks 
of Egypt, having determined either to equal or even 
to surpass them in your training towards virtue ; for 
there are monasteries already among you, and the 
monastic life is practised. This purpose of yours one 
may justly praise ; and if you pray, God will bring it 
to perfection. But since you have also asked me 
about the conversation of the holy Antony, wishing 
to learn how he began his training and who he was 
before it, and what sort of an end he made to his 
life, and whether what is said of him is true, in order 
that you may bring yourselves to emulate him, with 
great readiness I received your command. For to 
me, too, it is a great gain and benefit only to remem- 
ber Antony ; and I know that you, when you hear of 
him, after you have wondered at the man, will wish 
also to emulate his purpose. For the life of Antony 
is for monks a perfect pattern of ascetic training. 
What, then, you have heard about him from other 

* I use throughout the text published by Heschelius, in i6ri. 



THE HERMITS, 37 

informants do not disbelieve, but rather think that 
you have heard from them a small part of the facts. 
For in any case, they could hardly relate fully such 
great matters, when even I, at your request, how- 
soever much I may tell you in my letter, can only send 
you a little which I remember about him. But do 
not cease to inquire of those who sail from hence ; 
for perhaps, if each tells what he knows, at last his 
history may be worthily compiled. I had wished, 
indeed, when I received your letter, to send for some 
of the monks who were wont to be most frequently in 
his company, that I might learn something more, and 
send you a fuller account. But since both the season 
of navigation limited me, and the letter-carrier was in 
haste, I hastened to write to your piety what I my- 
self know (for I have often seen him), and what I 
was able to learn from one who followed him for no 
short time, and poured water upon his hands ; always 
taking care of the truth, in order that no one when he 
hears too much may disbelieve, nor again, if he learns 
less than ii-, needful, despise the man. 

Antony was an Egyptian by race, born of noble 
parents,* who had a sufficient property of their own : 
and as they were Christians, he too was Christianly 
brought up, and when a boy was nourished in the 
house of his parents, besides whom and his home he 
knew nought. But when he grew older, he would 
not be taught letters,! not wishing to mix with other 

* He is said to have been born at Coma, near Heracleia, in Mid- 
dle Egypt, A. D. 251. 

* Seemingly the Greek language and literature. 



„a THE HERMITS. 

J 5 

boys ; but all his longing was (according to what is 
written of Jacob) to dwell simply in his own house. 
But when his parents took him into the Lord's 
house, he was not saucy, like a boy, nor inattentive 
as he grew older ; but was subject to his parents, 
and attentive to what was read, turning it to his own 
account. Nor again (as a boy who was moderately 
well off ) did he trouble his parents for various and 
expensive dainties, nor did he run after the pleasures 
of this life ; but was content with what he found, 
and asked for nothing more. When his parents 
died, he was left alone with a little sister, when he 
was about eighteen or twenty years of age, and took 
care both of his house and of her. But not six 
months after their death, as he was going as usual to 
the Lord's house, and collecting his thoughts, he 
meditated as he walked how the Apostles had left all 
and followed the Saviour ; and how those in the 
Acts brought the price of what they had sold, and 
laid it at the Apostles' feet, to be given away to the 
poor ; and what and how great a hope was laid up 
for them in heaven. With this in his mind, he 
entered the church. And it befell then that the 
Gospel was being read ; and he heard how the Lord 
had said to the rich man, " If thou wilt be perfect, 
go, sell all thou hast, and give to the poor ; and 
come, follow me, and thou shalt have treasure in 
heaven." Antony, therefore, as if the remembrance 
of the saints had come to him from God, and as if 
the lesson had been read on his account, went forth 
at once from the Lord's house, and gave away to 



THE HERMITS. 



39 



those of his own village the possessions he had 
inherited from his ancestors (three hundred plough- 
lands, fertile and very fair), that they might give no 
trouble either to him or his sister. All his movables 
he sold, and a considerable sum which he received 
for them he gave to the poor. But having kept back 
a little for his sister, when he went again into the 
Lord's house he heard the Lord saying in the Gospe^ 
" Take no thought for the morrow," and unable to 
endure any more delay, he went out and distributed 
that too to the needy. And having committed his 
sister to known and faithful virgins, and given to her 
wherewith to be educated in a nunnery, he himself 
thenceforth devoted himself, outside his house, to 
training ; * taking heed to himself, and using, him- 
self severely. For monasteries were not then com- 
mon in Egypt, nor did any monks at all know the 
wide desert ; but each who wished to take heed to 
himself exercised himself alone, not far from his own 
village. There was then in the next village an old 
man, who had trained himself in a solitary life from 
his youth. When Antony saw him, he emulated 
him in that which is noble. And first he began to 
stay outside the village ; and then, if he heard of any 
earnest man, he went to seek him, like a wise bee ; 
and did not return till he had seen him, and having 
got from him (as it were) provision for his jorney 
toward virtue, went his way. So dwelling there at 

* I have thought it more honest to translate aoiofo-is by " training," 
which is now, as then, its true equivalent : being a metaphor drawn 
from the Greek games by St Paul, i Tim. iv. 8, 



4o 



THE HERMITS. 



first, settled his mind neither to look back towards 
his parents' wealth nor to recollect his relations ; but 
he put all his longing and all his earnestness on train- 
ing himself more intensely. For the rest he worked 
with his hands, because he had heard, " If any man 
will not work, neither let him eat ;" and of his earn- 
ings he spent some on himself and some on the 
needy. He prayed continually, because he knew 
that one ought to pray secretly, without ceasing. He 
attended, also, so much to what was read, that, with 
him, none of the Scriptures fell to the ground, but 
he retained them all, and for the future his memory 
served him instead of books. Behaving thus, Antony 
was beloved by all ; and submitted truly to the earn- 
est men to whom he used to go. And from each 
of them he learnt some improvement in his earnest- 
ness and his training : he contemplated the courtesy, 
of one, and another's assiduity in prayer ; another's 
freedom from anger ; another's love of mankind : he 
took heed to one as he watched ; to another as he 
studied : one he admired for his endurance, another 
for his fasting and sleeping on the ground ; he laid 
to heart the meekness of one, and the long-suffering 
of another ; and stamped upon his memory the devo- 
tion to Christ and the mutual love which all in com- 
mon possessed. And thus filled full, he returned to 
his own place of training, gathering to himself what 
he had got from each, and striving to show all their 
qualities in himself. He never emulated those of 
his own age, save in what is best ; and did that so as 
to pain no one, but make all rejoice over him. And 



THE HERMITS. 



41 



all in the village who loved good, seeing him thus 
called him the friend of God ; and some embraced 
him as a son, some as a brother. 

But the devil, who hates and envies what is noble, 
would not endure such a purpose in a youth : but at- 
tempted against him all that he is wont to do ; sug- 
gesting to him the remembrance of his wealth, care 
for his sister, relation to his kindred, love of money, 
love of glory, the various pleasures of luxury, and the 
other solaces of life; and then the harshness of virtue 
and its great toil ; and the weakness of his body, and 
the length of time ; and altogether raised a great dust- 
cloud of arguments in his mind, trying to turn him 
back from his righteous choice. But when the enemy 
saw himself to be too weak for Antony's determina- 
tion, but rather baffled by his stoutness, and overthrown 
by his great faith, and falling before his continual 
prayers, then he attacked him with the temptations 
which he is wont to use against young men ; . . . . 
but he protected his body with faith, prayers, and fast- 
ings, . . . setting his thoughts on Christ, and on his 
own nobility through Christ, and on the rational fac- 
ulties of his soul, . . . and again on the terrors of the 
fire, and the torment of the worm, . . . and thus es- 
caped unhurt And thus was the enemy brought to 
shame. For he who thought himself to be equal with 
God was now mocked by a youth ; and he who 
boasted against flesh and blood was defeated by a man 
clothed in flesh. For the Lord worked with him, who 
bore flesh on our account, and gave to the body vic- 
tory over the devil, that each man in his battle may 



42 



THE HERMITS. 



say, " Not I, but the grace of God which is with me.' 
At last, when the dragon could not overthrow Antony- 
even thus, but saw himself thrust out of his heart, 
then gnashing his teeth ( as is written ), and as if beside 
himself, he appeared to the sight, as he is to the rea- 
son, as a black child, and as it were falling down be- 
fore him, no longer attempted to argue ( for the dei- 
ceiver was cast out ), but using a human voice said, " I 
have deceived many ; I have cast down many. But 
now, as in the case of man)', so in thine, I have been 
worsted in the battle." Then when Antony asked him, 
" Who art thou who speakest thus to me ? " he forth- 
with replied in a pitiable voice, " I am the spirit of 
impurity." . . . 

Then Antony gave thanks to God, and gaining 
courage, said, " Thou art utterly despicable ; for thou 
art black of soul, and weak as a child ; nor shall I 
henceforth cast one thought on thee. For the Lord 
is my helper, and I shall despise my enemies." That 
black being, hearing this, fled forthwith, cowering at 
his words, and afraid thenceforth of coming near the 
man. 

This was Antony's first struggle against the devil: 
or rather this mighty deed in him was the Saviour's, 
who condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness 
of the Lord should be fulfilled in us, who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. But neither did 
Antony, because the daemon had fallen, grow care- 
less and despise him ; neither did the enemy, when 
worsted by him, cease from lying in ambush against 
him. For he came round again as a lion, seeking a 



THE HERMITS. 



43 



pretence against him. But Antony had learnt from 
Scripture that many are the devices of the enemy ; 
and continually kept up his training, considering that, 
though he had not deceived his heart by pleasure, he 
would try some other snares. For the daemon delights 
in sin. Therefore he chastised his body more and 
more, and brought it into slavery, lest, having con- 
quered in one case, he should be tripped up in others. 
He determined, therefore, to accustom himself to a still 
more severe life ; and many wondered at him : but the 
labor was to him easy to bear. For the readiness of 
the spirit, through long usage, had created a good 
habit in him, so that, taking a very slight hint from 
others, he showed great earnestness in it. For he 
watched so much, that he often passed the whole 
night without sleep ; and that not once, but often, to 
the astonishment of men. He ate once a day, after 
the setting of the sun, and sometimes only once in two 
days, often even in four ; his food was bread with salt, 
his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and 
wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found 
among other earnest men. When he slept he was 
content with a rush mat : but mostly he lay on the bare 
ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying 
that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in 
training, than to seek things which softened the body ; 
and that they must accustom themselves to labor, 
according to the Apostle's saying, " When I am weak, 
then I am strong ; " for that the mind was strengthened 
as bodily pleasure was weakened. And this argument 
of his was truly wonderful. For he did not measure 



44 



THE HERMITS. 



the path of virtue, nor his going away into retirement 
on account of it, by time ; but by his own desire and 
will. So forgetting the past, he daily, as if beginning 
afresh, took more pains to improve, saying over to 
himself continually the Apostle's words, " Forgetting 
what is behind, stretching forward to what is before ; " 
and mindful, too, of Elias' speech, " The Lord liveth, 
before whom I stand this day." For he held, that by 
mentioning to-day, he took no account of past time : 
but, as if he were laying down a beginning, he tried 
earnestly to make himself day by day fit to appear 
before God, pure in heart, and ready to obey his 
will, and no other. And he said in himself that the 
ascetic ought for ever to be learning his own life from 
the manners of the great Elias, as from a mirror. 
Antony, having thus, as it were, bound himself, went 
to the tombs, which happened to be some way from 
the village ; and having bidden one of his acquaint- 
ances to bring him bread at intervals of many days, 
he entered one of the tombs, and, shutting the door 
upon himself, remained there alone. But the enemy, 
not enduring that, but rather terrified lest in a little 
while he should fill the desert with his training, coming 
one night with a multitude of daemons, beat him so 
much with stripes, that he lay speechless from the 
torture. For he asserted that the pain was so great 
that no blows given by men could cause such agony 
But by the providence of God (for the Lord does not 
overlook those who hope in him), the next day his 
acquaintance came, bringing him the loaves. And 
having opened the door, and seeing him lying on the 



THE HERMITS. 45 

ground for dead, he carried him to the Lord's house in 
the village, and laid him on the ground ; and many of 
his kinsfolk and the villagers sat round him, as round 
a corpse. But about midnight, Antony coming to 
himself, and waking up, saw them all sleeping, and 
only his acquaintance awake, and, nodding to him to 
approach, begged him to carry him back to the tombs, 
without waking any one. When that was done, the 
doors were shut, and he remained as before, alone 
inside. And, because he could not stand on account 
of the daemons' blows, he prayed prostrate. And after 
his prayer, he said with a shout, " Here am I, Antony : 
I do not fly from your stripes ; yea, if you do yet 
more, nothing shall separate me from the love of 
Christ." And then he sang, "If an host be laid 
against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid." Thus 
thought and spoke the man who was training himself. 
But the enemy, hater of what is noble, and envious, 
wondering that he dared to return after the stripes, 
called together his dogs, and bursting with rage, — " Ye 
see," he said, " that we have not stopped this man by 
the spirit of impurity ; nor by blows : but he is even 
growing bolder against us. Let us attack him some 
other way." * For it is easy for the devil to invent 
schemes of mischief. So then in the night they made 
such a crash, that the whole place seemed shaken, and 
the daemons, as if breaking in the four walls of the room, 
seemed to enter through them, changing themselves 

* I give this passage as it stands in the Greek version. In the 
Latin, attributed to Evagrius, it is even more extravagant and rhe- 
torical. 



4 6 THE HERMITS. 

into the shapes of beasts and creeping things ; * and 
the place was forthwith filled with shapes of lions, 
bears, leopards, bulls, and snakes, asps, scorpions, 
and wolves, and each of them moved according to his 
own fashion. The lion roared, longing to attack \ 
the bull seemed to toss ; the serpent did not cease 
creeping, and the wolf rushed upon him ; and alto- 
gether the noises of all the apparitions were dreadful, 
and their tempers cruel. But Antony, scourged and 
pierced by them, felt a more dreadful bodily pain 
than before : but he lay unshaken and awake in spirit. 
He groaned at the pain of his body : but clear in 
intellect, and as it were mocking, he said, " If there 
were any power in you, it were enough that one of 
you should come on ; but since the Lord has made 
you weak, therefore you try to frighten me by mere 
numbers. And a proof of your weakness is, that 
you imitate the shapes of brute animals." And 
taking courage, he said again, " If ye can, and have 
received power against me, delay not, but attack ; 
but if ye cannot, why do ye disturb me in vain ? 
For a seal to us and a wall of safety is our faith 
in the Lord." The daemons, having made many 
efforts, gnashed their teeth at him, because he rather 
mocked at them, than they at him. But neither then 
did the Lord forget Antony's wrestling, but appeared 

* Surely the imagery painted on the inner walls of Egyptian tombs 
and probably believed by Antony and his compeers to be connected 
with devil-worship, explain these visions. In the " Words of the 
Elders " a monk complains of being troubled with "pictures, old and 
new." Probably, again, the pain which Antony felt was the agony of a 
fever; and the visions which he saw, its delirium. 



7'HE HERMITS. 4? 

to help him. For, looking up, he saw the roof as it 
were opened and a ray of light coming down towards 
him. The daemons suddenly became invisible, and 
the pain of his body forthwith ceased, and the build- 
ing became quite whole. But Antony, feeling the 
succor, and getting his breath again, and freed 
from pain, questioned the vision which appeared, 
saying, " Where wert thou ? Why didst thou not 
appear to me from the first, to stop my pangs ? ' 
And a voice came to him, ' ' Antony, I was here, but 
I waited to see thy fight. Therefore, since thou 
hast withstood, and not been worsted, I will be to 
thee always a succor, and will make thee become 
famous everywhere." Hearing this, he rose and 
prayed, and was so strong, that he felt that he had 
more power in his body than he had before. He 
was then about thirty and five years old. And on 
the morrow he went out, and was yet more eager 
for devotion to God ; and, going to that old man 
aforesaid, he asked him to dwell with him in the 
desert. But when he declined, because of his age 
and because no such custom had yet arisen, he him 
self straightway set off to the mountain. But the 
enemy again, seeing his earnestness, and wishing to 
hinder it, cast in his way the phantom of a great 
silver plate. But Antony, perceiving the trick of him 
who hates what is noble, stopped. And he judged 
the plate worthless, seeing the devil in it ; and said, 
" Whence comes a plate in the desert ? This is 
no beaten way, nor is there here the footstep of 
any traveller. Had it fallen, it could not have been 



48 THE HERMITS. 

unperceived, from its great size, and besides, he who 
lost it would have turned back and found it, because 
the place is desert, This is a trick of the devil. 
Thou shalt not hinder, devil, my determination by 
this : let it go with thee into perdition." And as 
Antony said that it vanished, as smoke from before 
the face of the fire. Then again he saw, not this 
time a phantom, but real .gold lying in the way as he 
came up. But whether the enemy showed it him, 
or whether some better power, which was trying the 
athlete, and showing the devil that he did not care 
for real wealth ; neither did he tell, nor do we know, 
save that it was real gold. Antony, wondering at 
the abundance of it, so stepped over it as over fire, 
and so passed it by, that he never turned, but ran on 
in haste, until he had lost sight of the place. And 
growing even more and more intense in his determi- 
nation, he rushed up the mountain, and finding an 
empty enclosure full of creeping things on account 
of its age, he betook himself across the river, and 
dwelt in it. The creeping things, as if pursued by 
some one, straightway left the place : but he blocked 
up the entry, having taken with him loaves for six 
months (for the Thebans do this, and they often re- 
main a whole year fresh), and having water with him, 
entering, as into a sanctuary, into that monastery, * 
he remained alone, never going forth, and never look- 
ing at any one who came. Thus he passed long time 
there training himself, and only twice a year recei- 

* Here is an instance of the original use of the word "monastery,' 
viz., a cell in which a single person dwelt. 



THE HERMITS. 49 

eeived loaves, let down from above through the roof. 
But those of his acquaintance who came to him, as 
they often remained days and nights outside (for he 
did not allow any one to enter), used to hear as it 
were crowds inside clamoring, thundering, lament- 
ing, crying — " Depart from our ground. What dost 
thou even in the desert ? Thou canst not abide 
our onset." At first those without thought that there 
were some men fighting with him, and that they had 
got in by ladders : but when, peeping in through a 
crack, they saw no one, then they took for granted 
that they were daemons, and being terrified, called 
themselves on Antony. But he rather listened to 
them than cared for the others. For his acquain- 
tances came up continually, expecting to find him 
dead, and heard him singing, " Let the Lord aris e 
and his enemies shall be scattered ; and let them 
who hate him flee before him. As wax melts from 
before the face of the fire, so shall sinners perish 
from before the face of God." And again, " All 
nations compassed me round about, and in the name 
of the Lord I repelled them." 

He endured then for twenty years , thus training 
himself alone ; neither going forth, nor seen by any 
one for long periods of time. But after this, when 
many longed for him, and wished to imitate his train 
ing, and others who knew him came, and were 
bursting in the door by force, Antony came forth as 
from some inner shrine, initiated into the mysteries, 
and bearing the God.* And then first he appeared 

* An allusion to the heathen mysteries. 



S" 



THE HERMITS. 



out of the enclosure to those who were coming to him. 
And when they saw him they wondered ; for his 
body had kept the same habit, and had neither grown 
fat, nor lean from fasting, nor worn by fighting with 
the daemons. For he was just such as they had known 
him before his retirement. They wondered again at 
the purity of his soul, because it was neither contrac- 
ted as if by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor pos- 
sessed by laughter or by depression ; for he was 
neither troubled at beholding the crowd, nor over- 
joyful at being saluted by too many ; but was alto- 
gether equal, as being governed by reason, and 
standing on that which is according to nature. Many 
sufferers in body who were present did the Lord 
heal by him ; and others he purged from daemons. 
And he gave to Antony grace in speaking, so that he 
comforted many who grieved, and reconciled others 
who were at variance, exhorting all to prefer nothing 
in the world to the love of Christ, and persuading 
and exhorting them to be mindful of the good things 
to come, and of the love of God towards us who 
spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us 
all. He persuaded many to choose the solitary 
life ; and so thenceforth cells sprang up in the moun- 
tains, and the desert was colonized by monks, who 
went forth from their own, and registered themselves 
in the city which is in heaven. 

And when he had need to cross the Arsenoite 
Canal (and the need was the superintendence of the 
brethren), the canal was full of crocodiles. And having 
only prayed, he entered it ; and both he and all who 



THE HERMITS. 5 ! 

were with him went through it unharmed. But when 
he returned to the cell, he persisted in the noble 
labors of his youth ; and by continued exhortations 
he increased the willingness of those who were already 
monks, and stirred to love of training the greater 
number of the rest ; and quickly, as his speech 
drew men on, the cells became more numerous ; and 
he governed them all as a father. And when he 
had gone forth one day, and all the monks had come 
to him desiring to hear some word from him, he 
spake to them in the Egyptian tongue, thus — " That 
the Scriptures were sufficient for instruction, but that 
it was good for us to exhort each other in the 
faith." .... 

[Here follows a long sermon, historically impor- 
tant, as being the earliest Christian attempt to re- 
duce to a science daemonology and the temptation of 
daemons : but its involved and rhetorical form proves 
sufficiently that it could not have been delivered by an 
unlettered man like Antony. Neither is it, probably, 
even composed by St. Athanasius; it seems rather 
like several other passages in this biography, the in- 
terpolation of some later scribe. It has been there- 
fore, omitted.] 

And when Antony had spoken thus, all rejoiced ; 
and in one the love of virtue was increased, in 
another negligence stirred up, and in others conceit 
stopped, while all were persuaded to despise the plots 
of the devil, wondering at the grace which had been 
given to Antony by the Lord for the discernment of 
spirits. So the cells in the mountains were like tents 



52 THE HERMITS. 

filled with divine choirs, singing, discoursing, fasting, 
praying, rejoicing over the hope of the future, working 
that they might give alms thereof, and having love 
and concord with each other. And there was really 
to be seen, as it were, a land by itself, of piety and 
justice ; for there was none there who did wrong, or 
suffered wrong : no blame from any talebearer : but a 
multitude of men training themselves, and in all of 
them a mind set on virtue. So that any one seeing 
the cells, and such an array of monks, would have 
cried out, and said, " How fair are thy dwellings, O 
Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel ; like shady groves and 
like parks beside a river, and like tents which the Lord 
hath pitched, and like cedars by the waters." He 
himself, meanwhile, withdrawing, according to his 
custom, alone to his own cell, increased the severity of 
his training. And he groaned daily, considering the 
mansions in heaven, and setting his longing on them 
and looking at the ephemeral life of man. For even 
when he was going to eat or sleep, he was ashamed, 
when he considered the rational element of his soul ; 
so that often, when he was about to eat with many 
other monks, he remembered the spiritual food, and 
declined, and went far away from them ; thinking that 
he should blush if he was seen by others eating. He 
ate, nevertheless, by himself, on account of the neces- 
sities of the body ; and often, too, with the brethren, 
being bashful with regard to them, but plucking up 
heart for the sake of saying something that might be 
useful ; and used to tell them that they ought to give 
all their leisure rather to the soul than to the body; 



THE HERMITS. 



S3 



and that they should grant a very little time to the 
body, for mere necessity's sake : but that their whole 
leisure should be rather given to the soul, and should 
seek her profit, that she may not be drawn down by the 
pleasures of the body, but rather the body be led cap- 
tive by her. For this (he said) was what was spoken 
by the Saviour, " Be not anxious for your soul, what ye 
shall eat ; nor for your body, whatye shall put on. And 
seek not what ye shall eat, nor what ye shall drink 
neither let your minds be in suspense : for after all 
these things the nations of the world seek : but your 
Father knoweth that ye need all these things. Rather 
seek first his kingdom ; and all these things shall be 
added unto you." 

After these things, the persecution which hap- 
pened under the Maximinus of that time,* laid hold of 
the Church ; and when the holy martyrs were brought 
to Alexandria, Antony too followed, leaving his cell, 
and saying, " Let us depart too, that we may wrestle 
if we be called, or see them wrestling." And he 
longed to be a martyr himself, but, not choosing to 
give himself up, he ministered to the confessors in the 
mines, and in the prisons. And he was very earnest 
in the judgment-hall to excite the readiness of those 
who were called upon to wrestle ; and to receive and 

* A. D. 311. Galerius Valerius Maximinus (his real name was 
Daza) had been a shepherd-lad in Illyria, like his uncle Galerius Val- 
erius Maximianus; and rose, like him, through the various grades 
of the army to be co-Emperor of Rome, over Syria, Egypt, and Asia 
Minor ; a furious persecutor of the Christians, and a brutal and prof- 
ligate tyrant. Such were the " kings of the world " from whom 
those old monks fled. 



54 



THE HERMITS. 



bring on their way, till they were perfected, those of 
them who went to martyrdom. At last the judge, 
seeing the fearlessness and earnestness of him and 
those who were with him, commanded that none of 
the monks should appear in the judgment-hall, or 
haunt at all in the city. So all the rest thought good 
to hide themselves that day ; but Antony cared so 
much for the order, that he all the rather washed his 
cloak, and stood next day upon a high place, and ap- 
peared to the General in shining white. Therefore, 
when all the rest wondered, and the General saw him, 
and passed by with his array, he stood fearless, show- 
ing forth the readiness of us Christians. For he him- 
self prayed to be a martyr, as I have said, and was like 
one grieved, because he had not borne his witness. 
But the Lord was preserving him for our benefit, and 
that of the rest, that he might become a teacher to 
many in the training which he had learnt from Scrip- 
ture. For many, when they only saw his manner of 
life, were eager to emulate it. So he again ministered 
continually to the confessors ; and, as if bound with 
them, wearied himself in his services. And when at 
last the persecution ceased, and the blessed Bishop 
Peter had been martyred, he left the city, and went 
back to his cell. And he was there, day by day, a 
martyr in his conscience, and wrestling in the conflict 
of faith ; for he imposed on himself a much more 
severe training than before ; and his garment was 
within of hair, without of skin, which he kept till his 
end. He neither washed his body with water, nor 
even cleansed his feet, nor actually endured putting 



THE HERMITS. 55 

them into water unless it were necessary. And no one 
ever saw him unclothed till he was dead and about to 
be buried. 

When, then, he retired, and had resolved neither 
to go forth himself, nor to receive any one, one Mar- 
tinianus, a captain of soldiers, came and gave trouble 
to Antony. For he had with him his daughter, who 
was tormented by a daemon. And while he remained a 
long time knocking at the door, and expecting him to 
come to pray to God for the child, Antony could not 
bear to open, but leaning from above, said, " Man, why 
criest thou to me ? I, too, am a man, as thou art. But 
if thou believest, pray to God, and it comes to pass." 
Forthwith, therefore, he believed, and called on Christ ; 
and went away, with his daughter cleansed from the 
daemon. And many other things the Lord did by 
him, saying, "Ask, and it shall be given you." For 
most of the sufferers, when he did not open the door, 
only sat down outside the cell, and believing, and 
praying honestly, were cleansed. But when he saw 
himself troubled by many, and not being permitted 
to retire, as he wished, being afraid lest he himself 
should be puffed up by what the Lord was doing by 
him, or lest others should count of him above what he 
was, he resolved to go to the Upper Thebaid, to those 
who knew him not. And, in fact, having taken loaves 
from the brethren, he sat down on the bank of the 
river, watching for a boat to pass, that he might 
embark and go up in it. And as he watched, a voice 
came to him: "Antony, whither art thou going, and 
why ? " And he. not terrified, but as one accustomed 



5 6 THE HERMITS. 

to be often called thus, answered when he heard it, 
" Because the crowds will not let me be at rest ; 
therefore am I minded to go up to the Upper Thebaid, 
on account of the many annoyances which befall me ; 
and, above all, because they ask of me things beyond 
my strength." And the voice said to him, " Even if 
thou goest up to the Thebaid, even if, as thou art 
minded to do, thou goest down the cattle pastures,* 
thou wilt have to endure more, and double trouble ; 
but if thou wilt really be at rest, go now into the 
inner desert." And when Antony said, "Who will 
show me the way, for I have not tried it ?" forthwith 
it showed him Saracens who were going to journey 
that road. So, going to them, and drawing near them, 
Antony asked leave to depart with them into the 
desert. But they, as if by an ordinance of Provi- 
dence, willingly received him ; and, journeying three 
days and three nights with them, he came to a very 
high mountain ; f and there was water under the 
mountain, clear, sweet, and very cold ; and a plain out- 
side ; and a few neglected date-palms. Then Antony, 
as if stirred by God, loved the spot ; for this it was that 
he had pointed out who spoke to him beside the river 
bank. At first, then, having received bread from 
those who journeyed with him, he remained alone in 
the mount, no one else being with nim. For he rec- 

* The lonely alluvial flats at the mouths of the Nile. " Below the 
cliffs, beside the sea," as one describes them. 

t Now the monastery of Deir Antonios, over the Wady el Arabah 
between the Nile and the Red Sea, where Antony's monks endure to 
this day. 



THE HERMITS. 



57 



ognized that place as his own home, and kept it 
thenceforth. And the Saracens themselves, seeing 
Antony's readiness came that way on purpose, and 
joyfully brought him loaves ; and he had, too, the 
solace of the dates, which was then little and paltry. 
But after this, the brethren, having found out the spot, 
like children remembering their father, were anxious 
to send things to him ; but Antony saw that in bring- 
ing him bread, some they were put to trouble and 
fatigue ; and, sparing the monks even in that, took 
counsel with himself, and asked some who came to 
him to bring him a hoe and a hatchet, and a little corn ; 
and when these were brought, having gone over the 
land round the mountain, he found a very narrow 
place which was suitable, and tilled it ; and, having 
plenty of water to irrigate it, he sowed ; and doing 
this year by year, he got his bread from thence, 
rejoicing that he should be troublesome to no one 
on that account, and that he was keeping himself free 
from obligation in all things. But after this, seeing 
again some people coming, he planted also a very few 
pot-herbs, that he who came might have some small 
solace after the labor of that hard journey. At first, 
however the wild beast in the desert, coming on ac- 
count of the water, often hurt his crops and his tillage ; 
but he, gently laying hold of one of them, said to 
them all, " Why do you hurt me, who have not hurt 
you ? Depart and in the name of the Lord, never 
come near this place." And from that time forward, 
as if they were afraid of his command, they never 
came near the place. So he was there alone in the 



58 



THE HERMITS. 



inner mountain, having leisure for prayer and for 
training. But the brethren who ministered to him 
asked him that, coming every month, they might bring 
him olives, and pulse, and oil ; for, after all, he 
was old. And while he had his conversation there, 
what great wrestlings he endured, according to that 
which is written, "Not against flesh and blood, but 
against the daemons who are our adversaries," we 
have known from those who went in to him. For there 
also they heard tumults, and many voices, and clashing 
as of arms ; and they beheld the mount by night full 
of wild beasts, and they looked on him, too, fighting, 
as it were, with beings whom he saw, and praying 
against them. And those who came to him he bade 
be of good courage, but he himself wrestled, bend- 
ing his knees, and praying to the Lord. And it was 
truly worthy of wonder that, alone in such a desert, 
he was neither cowed by the daemons who beset him, 
nor while there were there so many four-footed and 
creeping beasts, was at all afraid of their fierceness ; 
but, as is written, trusted in the Lord like the Mount 
Zion, having his reason unshaken and untossed ; so 
that the daemons rather fled, and the wild beasts, as 
is written, were at peace with him. 

Nevertheless, the devil ( as David sings ) watched 
Antony, and gnashed upon him with his teeth. But 
Antony was comforted by the Saviour, remaining un 
hurt by his craft and manifold artifices. For on him, 
when he was awake at night, he let loose wild beasts ; 
and almost all the hyenas in that desert, coming out 
of their burrows, beset him round, and he was in the 



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59 



midst. And when each gaped on him and threatened 
to bite him perceiving the art of the enemy, he said, 
to them all, " If ye have received power against me, 
I am ready to be devoured by you : but if ye have 
been set on by daemons, delay not, but withdraw, 
for I am a servant of Christ." When Antony said 
this, they fled, pursued by his words as by a whip. 
Next after a few days, as he was working — for he 
took care, too, to labor — some one standing at the 
door pulled the plait that he was working. For he 
was weaving baskets, which he used to give to those 
who came, in return for what they brought him. And 
rising up, he saw a beast, like a man down to his 
thighs, but having legs and feet like an ass ; and 
Antony only crossed himself and said, " I am a 
servant of Christ. If thou hast been sent against me, 
behold, here I am." And the beast with its daemons 
fled away, so that in its haste it fell and died. Now 
the death of the beast was the fall of the daemons. 
For they were eager to do everything to bring him 
back out of the desert, but could not prevail. 

And being once asked by the monks to come 
down to them, and to visit awhile them and their 
places, he journeyed with the monks who came to 
meet him. And a camel carried their loaves and their 
water ; for that desert is all dry, and there is no drink- 
able water unless in that mountain alone whence they 
drew their water, and where his cell is. But when the 
water failed on the journey, and the heat was most 
intense, they all began to be in danger ; for going 
round to various places, and finding no water, they 



60 THE HERMITS. 

could walk no more, but lay down on the ground, 
and they let the camel go, and gave themselves up. 
But the old man, seeing them all in danger, was ut- 
terly grieved, and groaned ; and departing a little 
way from them, and bending his knees and stretching 
out his hands, he prayed, and forthwith the Lord 
caused water to come out where he had stopped and 
prayed. And thus all of them drinking took breath 
again ; and having filled their skins, they sought the 
camel, and found her ; for it befell that the halter had 
been twisted round a stone, and thus she had been 
stopped. So, having brought her back, and given 
her to drink, they put the skins on her, and went 
through their journey unharmed. And when they 
came to the outer cells all embraced him, looking on 
him as a father. And he, as if he brought them 
guest-gifts from the mountain, gave them away to 
them in his words, and shared his benefits among 
them. And there was joy again in the mountains,, 
and zeal for improvement, and comfort through their 
faith in each other. And he too rejoiced, seeing the 
willingness of the monks, and his sister grown old in 
maidenhood, and herself the leader of other virgins. 
And so after certain days he went back again to 
the mountain. 

And after that many came to him ; and others 
who suffered dared also to come. Now to all the 
monks who came to him he gave continually this 
command : To trust in the Lord and love him, and to 
keep themselves from foul thoughts and fleshly pleas- 
ures ; and, as is written in the Parables, not to be 



THE HERMITS. 61 

deceived by fulness of bread ; and to avoid vainglory ; 
and to pray continually ; and to sing before sleep and 
after sleep ; and to lay by in their hearts the command- 
ment of Scripture ; and to remember the works of the 
saints, in order to have their souls attuned to emulate 
them. But especially he counselled them to meditate 
continually on the Apostle's saying, " Let not the sun 
go down upon your wrath;" and this he said was 
spoken of all commandments in common, in order 
that not on wrath alone, but on every other sin, the 
sun should never go down ; for it was noble and 
necessary that the sun should never condemn us for 
a baseness by day, nor the ,moon for a sin or even a 
thought by night ; therefore, in order that that which 
is noble may be preserved in us, it was good to hear 
and to keep what the Apostle commanded: for 
he said : " Judge yourselves, and prove yourselves." 
Let each then take account with himself, day by day, 
of his daily and nightly deeds ; and if he has not 
sinned, let him not boast, but let him endure in what 
is good and not be negligent, neither condemn his 
neighbor, neither justify himself, as said the blessed 
Apostle Paul, until the Lord comes who searches 
secret things. For we often deceive ourselves in what 
we do, and we indeed know not : but the Lord compre- 
hends all. Giving therefore the judgment to Him, let 
us sympathize with each other ; and let us bear each 
other's burdens, and examine ourselves ; and what we 
are behind in, let us be eager to fill up. And let 
this, too, be my counsel for safety against sinning. 
Let us each note and write down the deeds and 



62 THE HERMITS. 

motions of the soul as if he were about to relate them 
to each other ; and be confident that, as we shall be 
utterly ashamed that they should be known, we shall 
cease from sinning, and even from desiring anything 
mean. For who when he sins wishes to be harmed 
thereby ? Or who, having sinned, does not rather lie, 
wishing to hide it ? As therefore when in each other's 
sight we dare not commit a crime, so if we write 
down our thoughts, and tell them to each other, we 
shall keep ourselves the more from foul thoughts, for 
shame lest they should be known. . . . And thus 
forming ourselves we shall be able to bring the body 
into slavery, and please the Lord on the one hand, 
and on the other trample on the snares of the enemy." 
This was his exhortation to those who met him : but 
with those who suffered he suffered, and prayed with 
them. And often and in many things the Lord heard 
him ; and neither when he was heard did he boast • 
nor when he was not heard did he murmur: but, 
remaining always the same, gave thanks to the Lord. 
And those who suffered he exhorted to keep up heart, 
and to know that the power of cure was none of his, 
nor of any man's; but only belonged to God, who 
works when and whatsoever he chooses. So the 
sufferers received this as a remedy, learning not to 
despise the old man's words, but rather to keep up 
heart ; and those who were cured learned not to 
bless Antony, but God alone. 

For instance, one called Fronto, who belonged to 
the palace, and had a grievous disease (for he gnawed 
his own tongue, and tried to injure his eyes), came 



THE HERMITS. 63 

to the mountain and asked Antony to pray for him 
And when he had prayed he said to Fronto, " Depart, 
and be healed." And when he resisted, and remained 
within some days, Antony continued saying, " Thou 
canst not be healed if thou remainest here ; go 
forth, and as soon as thou enterest Egypt, thou shalt 
see the sign which shall befall thee." He, believing, 
went forth ; and as soon as he only saw Egypt he 
was freed from his disease, and became sound ac- 
cording to the word of Antony, which he had learnt 
by prayer from the Saviour 

[Here follows a story of a girl cured of a painful 
complaint: which need not be translated.] 

But when two brethren were coming to him, and 
water failed them on the journey, one of them died, 
and the other was about to die. In fact being no 
longer able to walk, he too lay upon the ground 
expecting death. But Antony, as he sat on the 
mountain, called two monks who happened to be 
there, and hastened them, saying, " Take a pitcher of 
water, and run on the road towards Egypt ; for of two 
who are coming hither one has just expired, and the 
other will do so if you do not hasten. For this has 
been showed to me as I prayed." So the monks going 
found the one lying dead, and buried him ; and the 
other they recovered with the water, and brought him 
to the old man. Now the distance was a day's 
journey. But if any one should ask why he did 
not speak before one of them expired, he does 
not question rightly; for the judgment of that 
death did not belong to Antony, but to God, who 



6 4 



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both judged concerning the one ; and revealed con- 
cerning the other. But this alone in Antony was 
wonderful, that sitting on the mountain he kept his 
heart watchful, and the Lord showed him things 
afar off. 

For once again, as he sat on the mountain and 
looked up, he saw some one carried aloft, and a great 
rejoicing among some who met him. Then wondering, 
and blessing such a choir, he prayed to be taught 
what that might be ; and straightway a voice came to 
him that this was the soul of Ammon, the monk 
in Nitria,* who had persevered as an ascetic to his 
old age ; and the distance from Nitria to the moun- 
tain where Antony was, is thirieen days' journey. 
Those then who were with Antony, seeing the old 
man wondering, asked the reason, and heard that 
Ammon had just expired, for he was known to them 
on account of his having frequently come thither, and 
many signs having been worked by him, of which this 
is one. . . . 

[Here follows the story (probably an interpolation) 
of Ammon's being miraculously carried across the 
river Lycus, because he was ashamed to undress 
himself.] 

But the monks to whom Antony spoke about 
Ammon's death noted down the day ; and when 

* This most famous monastery, L e. collection of monks' cells, in 
Egypt is situate forty miles from Alexandria, on a hill where nitre 
was gathered. The hospitality and virtue of its inmates are much 
praised by Ruffinus and Palladius. They were, nevertheless, the 
chief agents in the fanatical murder of Hypatia. 



THE HERMITS. 65 

brethren came from Nitria after thirty days, they 
inquired and learnt that Ammon had fallen asleep 
at the day and hour in which the old man saw his 
soul carried aloft. And all on both sides wondered 
at the purity of Antony's soul ; how he had learnt 
and seen instantly what had happened thirteen days' 
journey off. 

Moreover, Archeleas the Count, finding him once 
in the outer mountain praying alone, asked him con- 
cerning Polycratia, that wonderful and Christ-bearing 
maiden in Laodicea ; for she suffered dreadful in- 
ternal pain from her extreme training, and was alto- 
gether weak in body. Antony, therefore, prayed ; 
and the Count noted down the day on which the 
prayer was offered. And going back to Laodicea, he 
found the maiden cured ; and asking when and on 
what day her malady had ceased, he brought out the 
paper on which he had written down the date of the 
prayer. And when she told him, he showed at once 
the writing on the paper. And all found that the 
Lord had stopped her sufferings while Antony was 
still praying and calling for her on the goodness of 
the Saviour. 

And concerning those who came to him, he often 
predicted some days, or even a month, beforehand, 
and the cause why they were coming. For some came 
only to see him, and others on account of sickness, 
and others because they suffered from daemons, and all 
thought the labor of the journey no trouble nor harm, 
for each went back aware that he had been benefited. 
And when he spoke and looked thus, he asked no 
6 



66 THE HERMITS. 

one to marvel at him on that account, but to marvel 
rather at the Lord, because he had given us, who are 
but men, grace to know him according to our powers. 
And as he was going down again to the outer cells, 
and was minded to enter a boat and pray with the 
monks, he alone perceived a dreadfully evil odor, 
and when those in the boat told him that they had 
fish and brine on board, and that it was they which 
smelt, he said that it was a different smell ; and while 
he was yet speaking, a youth, who had an evil spirit, 
had gone before them and hidden in the boat, 
suddenly cried out. But the daemon, being rebuked 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, went out of 
him, and the man became whole, and all knew that 
the smell had come from the evil spirit. And there 
was another man of high rank who came to him, 
having a daemon, and one so terrible, that the pos- 
sessed man did not know that he was going to 
Antony, but [showed the common symptoms of 
mania]. Those who brought him entreated Antony 
to pray over him, which he did, feeling for the young 
man, and he watched beside him all night. But 
about dawn, the young man, suddenly rushing on 
Antony, assaulted him. When those who came 
with him were indignant, Antony said, " Be not hard 
upon the youth, for it is not he, but the daemon in 
him ; and because he has been rebuked, and com- 
manded to go forth into dry places, he has become 
furious, and done this. Glorify, therefore, the Lord 
for his having thus rushed upon me, as a sign to 
you that the daemon is going out." And as Antony 



THE HERMITS. 67 

said this, the youth suddenly became sound, and, re- 
covering his reason, knew where he was, and embraced 
the old man, giving thanks to God. And most of 
the monks agree unanimously that many like things 
were done by him : yet are they not so wonderful as 
what follows. For once, when he was going to eat 
and rose up to pray about the ninth hour, he felt him- 
self rapt in spirit; and (wonderful to relate 1 ) as he 
stood he saw himself as it were taken out of himself, 
and led into the air by some persons ; and then 
others, bitter and terrible, standing in the air, and 
trying to prevent his passing upwards. And when 
those who led him fought against them, they de- 
manded whether he was not accountable to them. 
And when they began to take account of his deeds 
from his birth, his guides stopped them, saying, 
" What happened from his birth upwards, the Lord 
hath wiped out : but of what has happened since he 
became a monk, and made a promise to God, of that 
you may demand an account." Then, when they 
brought accusations against him, and could not prove 
them, the road was opened freely to him. And 
straightway he saw himself as if coming back and 
standing before himself, and was Antony once more. 
Then, forgetting that he had not eaten, he remained 
the rest of the day and all night groaning and pray- 
ing, for he wondered when he saw against how many 
enemies we must wrestle, and through how many 
labors a man must traverse the air ; and he remem- 
bered that it is this which the Apostle means with 
regard to the Prince of the power of the air ; for it is 



£8 THE HERMITS. 

in the air that the enemy was in his power, righting 
against those who pass through it, and trying to hin- 
der them. Wherefore, also he especially exhorts us : 
" Take the whole armor of God, that the enemy, hav- 
ing no evil to say about us, may be ashamed. " But 
when we heard this, we remembered the Apostle's 
saying, " Whether in the body I cannot tell, or out of 
the body I cannot tell : God knoweth. " But Paul was 
caught up into the third heaven, and, having heard 
unspeakable words, descended again ; but Antony saw 
himself rapt in the air, and wrestling till he seemed to 
be free. 

Again, he had this grace, that as he was sitting 
alone in the mountain, if at any time he was puzzled 
in himself, the thing was revealed to him by Provi- 
dence as he prayed ; and the blessed man was, as 
Scripture says, taught of God. After this, at all 
events, when he had been talking with some one who 
came to him concerning the departure of the soul, 
and what would be its place after this life, the next 
night some one called him from without, and said, 
" Rise up, Antony ; come out and see, " So coming 
out (for he knew whom he ought to obey), he beheld a 
tall being, shapeless and terrible, standing and reach- 
ing to the clouds, and as it were winged beings ascend- 
in°-; and him stretching out his hands ; and some of 
them hindered by him, and others flying above him, 
and, when they had once passed him, borne upwards 
without trouble. But against them that tall being 
gnashed his teeth, while over those who fell, he re- 
joiced. And there came a voice to Antony, " Con- 



THE HERMITS, 69 

sider what thou seest." And when his understanding 
was opened, he perceived that it was the enemy who 
envies the faithful, and that those who were in his 
power he mastered and hindered from passing ; but 
that those who had not obeyed him, over them, as 
over conquerors, he had no power. Having seen 
this, and as it were made mindful by it, he struggled 
more and more daily to improve. Now these things 
he did not tell of his own accord ; but when he was 
long in prayer, and astonished in himself, those who 
were with him questioned him and urged him ; and 
he was forced to tell ; unable, as a father, to hide any- 
thing from his children ; and considering, too, that 
his own conscience was clear, and the story would be 
profitable for them, when they learned that the life of 
training bore good fruit, and that visions often came 
as a solace of their toils. 

But how tolerant was his temper, and how humble 
his spirit ; for though he was so great, he both hon- 
ored exceedingly the canon of the Church, and 
wished to put every ecclesiastic before himself in 
honor. For to the bishops and presbyters he was 
not ashamed to bow his head ; and if a deacon ever 
came to him for the sake of profit, he discoursed with 
him on what was profitable, but in prayer he gave 
place to him, not being ashamed even himself to learn 
from him.* For he often asked questions, and 



* It appears from this and many other passages, that extempore 
prayer was usual among these monks, as it was afterwards among the 
Puritans (who have copied them in so many other things), whenever 
a godly man visited them. 



7 THE HERMITS, 

deigned to listen to all present, confessing that he was 
profited if any one said aught that was useful. More- 
over, his countenance had great and wonderful grace ; 
and this gift too he had from the Saviour. For if he 
was present among the multitude of monks, and any 
one who did not previously know him wished to see 
him, as soon as he came he passed by all the rest, 
and ran to Antony himself, as if attracted by his eyes. 
He did not differ from the rest in stature or in stout- 
ness, but in the steadiness of his temper, and purity 
of his soul ; for as his soul was undisturbed, his out- 
ward senses were undisturbed likewise, so that the 
cheerfulness of his soul made his face cheerful, and 
from the movements of his body the steadfastness of 
his soul could be perceived, according to the Scrip- 
ture, " When the heart is cheerful the countenance is 

glad ; but when sorrow comes it scowleth." 

And he was altogether wonderful in faith, and pious, 
for he never communicated with the Meletian * schis- 
matics, knowing their malice and apostasy from the 
beginning ; nor did he converse amicably with Mani- 
chasans or any other heretics, save only to exhort 
them to be converted to piety. For he held that their 
friendship and converse was injury and ruin to the 
soul. So also he detested the heresy of the Arians, 
and exhorted all not to approach them, nor hold their 



* Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, was the author of an obscure 
schism calling itself the " Church of the Martyrs," which refused to 
communicate with the rest of the Eastern Church. See Smith's 
" Dictionary," on the word " Meletius." 



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7* 



misbelief. * In fact, when certain of the Ariomanites 
came to him, having discerned them and found them 
impious, he chased them out of the mountain, saying 
that their words were worse than serpent's poison ; 
and when the Arians once pretended that he was of 
the same opinion as they, he was indignant and fierce 
against them. Then being sent for by the bishops 
and all the brethren, he went down from the moun- 
tain, and entering Alexandria he denounced the 
Arians, saying, that that was the last heresy, and the 
forerunner of Antichrist ; and he taught the people 
that the Son of God was not a created thing, neither 
made from nought, but that he is the Eternal Word 
and Wisdom of the Essence of the Father ; wherefore 
also it is impious to say there was a time when he was 
not, for he was always the Word co-existent with the 
Father. Wherefore he said,-" Do not have any com- 
munication with these most impious Arians ; for 
there is no communion between light and darkness. 
For you are pious Christians : but they, when they 
say that the Son of God and the Word, who is from 
the Father, is a created being, differ nought from the 
heathen, because they worship the creature instead of 
God the Creator.f Believe rather that the whole 

* Arius (whose most famous and successful opponent was Athan- 
asius, the writer of this biography) maintained that the Son of God 
was not co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, but created by Him 
out of nothing, and before the world. His opinions were condemned 
in the famous Council of Nicua, A. D. 325. 

t If St. Antony could use so extreme an argument against the 
Arians, what would he have said to the Mariolatry which sprang up 
after his death ? 



M 



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creation itself is indignant against them, because they 
number the Creator and Lord of all, in whom all 
things are made, among created things." All the 
people therefore rejoiced at hearing that Christ-oppo- 
sing heresy anathematized by such a man ; and all 
those in the city ran together to see Antony and the 
Greeks,* and those who are called their priests f came 
into the church, wishing to see the man of God ; for 
all called him by that name, because there the Lord 
cleansed many by him from daemons, and healed those 
who were out of their mind. And many heathens 
wished only to touch the old man, believing that it 
would be of use to them ; and in fact as many became 
Christians in those few days, as would have been 
usually converted in a year. And when some thought 
that the crowd troubled him, and therefore turned 
all away from him, he quietly said that they were not 
more numerous than the fiends with whom he wres- 
tled on the mountain. But when he left the city, 
and we were setting him on his journey, when we 
came to the gate a certain woman called to him : 
" Wait, man of God, my daughter is grievously vexed 
with a devil ; wait, I beseech thee, lest I too harm 
myself with running after thee." The old man hear- 
ing it, and being asked by us, waited willingly. But 
when the woman drew near, the child dashed itself 
on the ground ; and when Antony prayed and called 
on the name of Christ, it rose up sound, the unclean 

* /. e. those who were still heathens. 

t icptv*. The Christian priest is alway* called in this work 
Simply loeSpvTepos, or elder. 



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13 



spirit having gone out ; and the mother blessed God, 
and we all gave thanks : and he himself rejoiced at 
leaving the city for the mountain, as for his own 
home. 

Now he was very prudent ; and what was wonder- 
ful, though he had never learnt letters, he was a 
shrewd and understanding man. Once, for example, 
two Greek philosophers came to him, thinking that 
they could tempt Antony. And he was in the outer 
mountain ; and when he went out to them, under- 
standing the men from their countenances, he said 
through an interpreter, " Why have you troubled 
yourselves so much, philosophers, to come to a foolish 
man ? " And when they answered that he was not 
foolish, but rather very wise, he said, " If you have 
come to a fool, your labor is superfluous, but if ye 
think me to be wise, become as I am ; for we ought 
to copy what is good, and if I had come to you, I 
should have copied you; but if you come to me, copy 
me, for I am a Christian." And they wondering 
went their way, for they saw that even daemons were 
afraid of Antony. 

And again when others of the same class met him 
in the outer mountain, and thought to mock him, 
because he had not learnt letters, Antony answered, 
" But what do you say ? which is first, the sense or 
the letters ? And which is the cause of the other, the 
sense of the letters, or the letters of the sense ? " And 
when they said that the sense came first, and invented 
the letters, Antony replied, " If then the sense be 
sound, the letters are not needed." Which struck 



74 



THE HERMITS. 



them, and those present, with astonishment. So they 
went away wondering, when they saw so much under- 
standing in an unlearned man. For though he had 
lived and grown old in the mountain, his manners 
were not rustic, but graceful and urbane ; and his 
speech was seasoned with the divine salt, so that no 
man grudged at him, but rather rejoiced over him, 
as many as came. . . . 

[ Here follows a long sermon against the heathen 
worship, attributed to St. Antony, but of very ques- 
tionable authenticity : the only point about it which 
is worthy of note is that Antony confutes the phil- 
osophers by challenging them to cure some pos- 
sessed persons, and when they are unable to do so 
casts out the daemons himself by the sign of the cross.] 

The fame of Antony reached even the kings, 
for Constantinus the Augustus, and his sons, Con- 
stantius and Constans, the Augusti, hearing of these 
things, wrote to him as to a father, and begged to 
receive an answer from him. But he did not make 
much of the letters, nor was puffed up by their mes- 
sages : and he was just the same as he was before 
the kings wrote to him. And he called his monks 
and said, " Wonder not if a king writes to us, for 
he is but a man : but wonder rather that God has 
written his law to man, and spoken to us by his 
own Son." So he declined to receive their letters, 
saying he did not know how to write an answer to 
such things ; but being admonished by the monks 
that the kings were Christians, and that they must 
not be scandalized by being despised, he permitted 



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75 



the letters to be read, and wrote an answer ; accept- 
ing because they worshipped Christ, and counselling 
them, for their salvation, not to think the present life 
great, but rather to remember judgment to come ; and 
to know that Christ was the only true and eternal 
king ; and he begged them to be merciful to men, and 
to think of justice and the poor, And they, when 
they received the answer, rejoiced. Thus was he 
kindly towards all, and all looked on him as their 
father. He then betook himself again into the inner 
mountain, and continued his accustomed training 
But often, when he was sitting and walking with 
those who came unto him, he was astounded, as is 
written in Daniel. And after the space of an hour, 
he told what had befallen to the brethren who were 
with him, and they perceived that he had seen some 
vision. Often he saw in the mountain what was 
happening in Egypt, and told it to Serapion the 
bishop, who saw him occupied with a vision. Once, 
for instance, as he sat, he fell as it were into an 
ecstasy, and groaned much at what he saw. Then, 
after an hour, turning to those who were with him, 
he groaned and fell into a trembling, and rose up 
and prayed, and bending his knees, remained so a 
long while ; and then the old man rose up and wept, 
the bystanders, therefore, trembling and altogether 
terrified, asked him to tell them what had happened, 
and tormented him much, that he was forced to speak. 
And he groaned greatly ; " Ah ! my children," he 
said, " it were better to be dead before what I have 
seen shall come to pass." And when they asked him 



76 the hermits: 

again, he said with tears, that " Wrath will seize on 
the Church, and she will be given over to men Ike 
unto brutes, which have no understanding ; for I saw 
the table of the Lord's house, and mules standing all 
around it in a ring and kicking inwards, as a herd 
does when it leaps in confusion ; and ye all perceived 
how I groaned, for I heard a voice saying, ' My 
sanctuary shall be defiled.' " 

This the old man saw, and after two years there 
befell the present inroad of the Arians,* and the 
plunder of the churches, when they carried off the 
holy vessels by violence, and made the heathen carry 
them : and when too they forced the heathens from 
the prisons to join them, and in their presence did on 
the holy table what they would.f Then we all per- 
ceived that the kicks of those mules presignified to 
Antony what the Arians are now doing without 
understanding, like the brutes. But when Antony saw 
this sight, he exhorted those about him, saying* 
" Lose not heart, children ; for as the Lord has been 
angry, so will he again be appeased, and the Church 
shall soon receive again her own order and shine forth 
as she is wont ; and ye shall see the persecuted restored 
to their place, and impiety retreating again into its 
own dens, and the pious faith speaking boldly every- 

* Probably that of a. d. 341, when Gregory of Cappadocia, nomin- 
ated by the Arian Bishops, who had assembled at the Council of An- 
tioch, expelled Athanasi us from the see of Alexandria, and great violence 
was committed by his followers and by Philagrius the Prefect. Atha- 
nasius meanwhile fled to Rome. 

\ I. E- celebrated there their own Communion. 



THE HERMITS. 



11 



where with all freedom. Only defile not yourselves 
with the Arians, for this teaching is not of the Apostle 
but of the daemons, and of their father the devil : 
barren and irrational and of an unsound mind, like 
the irrational deeds of those mules." Thus spoke 
Antony. 

But we must not doubt whether so great wonders 
have been done by a man : for the Saviour's promise 
is, " If ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye 
shall say to this mountain, Pass over from hence, it 
shall pass over, and nothing shall be impossible to 
you ;" and again, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, if 
ye shall ask my Father in my name, he shall give it 
you. Ask, and ye shall receive. " And he himself 
it is who said to his disciples and to all who believe in 
him, " Heal the sick, cast out devils ; freely ye have 
received, freely give." And certainly Antony did 
not heal by his own authority, but by praying and 
calling on Christ ; so that it was plain to all that it 
was not he who did it, but the Lord, who through 
Antony showed love to men, and healed the sufferers. 
But Antony's part was only the prayer and the train- 
ing, for the sake whereof, sitting in the mountain, he 
rejoiced in the sight of divine things, and grieved 
when he was tormented by many, and dragged to the 
outer mountain. 

For all the magistrates asked him to come down 
from the mountain, because it was impossible for 
them to go in thither to him on account of the litt- 
gants who followed him ; so they begged him to 
come, that they might only behold him. And when 



7 8 THE HERMITS. 

he declined they insisted, and even sent in to him 
prisoners under the charge of soldiers, that at least 
on their account he might come down. So being 
forced by necessity, and seeing them lamenting, he 
came to the outer mountain. And his labor this 
time too was profitable to many, and his coming for 
their good. To the magistrates, too, he was of use, 
counselling them to prefer justice to all things, and 
to fear God, and to know that with what judgment 
they judged they should be judged in turn. But he 
loved best of all his life in the mountain. Once 
again, when he was compelled in the same way to 
leave it, by those who were in want, and by the gen- 
eral of the soldiers, who entreated him earnestly, he 
came down, and having spoken to them somewhat 
of the things which conduced to salvation, he was 
pressed also by those who were in need. But being 
asked by the general to lengthen his stay, he refused 
and persuaded him by a graceful parable, saying, 
" Fishes, if they lie long on the dry land, die ; so monks 
who stay with you lose their strength. As the fishes, 
then hasten to the sea, so must we to the mountain 
lest if we delay we should forget what is within." 
The general, hearing this and much more from him, 
said with surprise that he was truly a servant of God, 
for whence could an unlearned man have so great 
sense if he were not loved by God ? 

Another general, named Balacius, bitterly persecu- 
ted us Christians on account of his affection for those 
abominable Arians. His cruelty was so great that 
he even beat nuns, and stripped and scourged monks 



THE HERMITS. 



79 



Antony sent him a letter to this effect : — " I see 
wrath coming upon thee. Cease, therefore, to perse- 
cute the Christians, lest the wrath lay hold upon 
thee, for it is near at hand. " But Balacius, laughing, 
threw the letter on the ground and spat on it ; and 
insulted those who brought it, bidding them tell An- 
tony, " Since thou carest for monks, I will soon 
come after thee likewise. " And not five days had 
passed, when the wrath laid hold on him. For Bala- 
cius himself, and Nestorius, the Eparch of Egypt, 
went out to the first station from Alexandria, which 
is called Chaereas's. Both of them were riding on 
horses belonging to Balacius, and the most gentle 
in all his stud : but before they had got to the place 
the horses began playing with each other, as is their, 
wont, and suddenly the more gentle of the two, on 
which Nestorius was riding, attacked Balacius and 
pulled him off with his teeth, and so tore his thigh 
that he was carried back to- the city, and died in three 
days. And all wondered that what Antony had so 
wonderfully foretold was so quickly fulfilled. These 
were his warnings to the more cruel. But the rest 
who came to him he so instructed that they gave up 
at once their lawsuits, and blessed those who had re- 
tired from this life. And those who had been un- 
justly used he so protected that you would think he 
and not they was the sufferer. And he was so able 
to be of use to all ; so that many who were serving 
in the army, and many wealthy men, laid aside the 
burdens of life and became thenceforth monks ; and 
altogether he was like a physician given by God to 



So THE HERMITS. 

Egypt. For who met him grieving, and did not go 
away rejoicing? Who eame mourning over his dead f 
and did not forthwith lay aside his grief ? Who came 
wrathful, and was not converted to friendship ? 
What poor man came wearied out, and when he saw 
and heard him did not despise wealth and comfort 
himself in his poverty ? What monk who had grown 
remiss, was not strengthened by coming to him ? 
What young man coming to the mountain and look- 
ing upon Antony, did not forthwith renounce pleas- 
ure and love temperance ? Who came to him tempted 
by devils, and did not get rest ? Who came troubled 
by doubts, and did not get peace of mind ? For this 
was the great thing in Antony's asceticism, that(as 
I have said before), having the gift of discerning 
spirits, he understood their movements, and knew in 
what direction each of them turned his endeavors 
and his attacks. And not only he was not deceived 
by them himself, but he taught those who were 
troubled in mind how they might turn aside the 
plots of daemons, teaching them the weakness and 
the craft of their enemies. How many maidens, too, 
who had been already betrothed, and only saw An- 
tony from afar, remained unmarried for Christ's sake ! 
Some, too, came from foreign parts to him, and alL 
having gained some benefit, went back from him as 
from a father. And now he has fallen asleep, all 
are as orphans who have lost a parent, consoling 
themselves with his memory alone, keeping his in- 
tructions and exhortations. But what the end of 
his life was like, it is fit that I should relate, and 



THE HERMITS. 81 

you hear eagerly. For it too is worthy of emulation. 
He was visiting, according to his wont, the monks 
in the outer mountain, and having learned from 
Providence concerning his own end, he said to the 
rebthren, " This visit to you is my last, and I wonder 
if we shall see each other again in this life. It is time 
me . to set sail, for I am near a hundred and five, 
years old." And when they heard that they wept 
and embraced and kissed the old man. And he, as 
if he was setting out from a foreign city to his own, 
spoke joyfully, and exhorted them not to grow idle in 
their labors or cowardly in their training, but to live 
as those who died daily, and (as I said before) to be 
earnest in keeping their souls from foul thoughts and 
to emulate the saints, and not to draw near the Mele- 
tian schismatics, for " ye know their evil and profane 
determinations, nor to have any communion with 
the Arians, for their impiety also is manifest to all. 
Neither if ye shall see the magistrates patronizing 
them, be troubled, for their phantasy shall have an 
end, and is mortal and only for a little while. Keep 
yourselves therefore rather clean from them, and hold 
that which has been handed down to you by the 
fathers, and especially the faith in our Lord Jesus 
Christ which ye have learned from Scripture, and of 
which ye have often been reminded by me." And 
when the brethren tried to force him to stay with 
them and make his end there, he would not endure it, 
on many accounts, as he showed by his silence ; and 
especially on this : — The Egyptians are wont to wrap 
in linen the corpses of good persons, and especially of 
6 



82 THE HERMITS. 

the holy martyrs, but not to bury them underground, 
but to lay them upon benches and keep them in their 
houses ; * thinking that by this they honor the 
departed. Now Antony had often asked the bishops 
to exhort the people about this, and in like manner he 
himself rebuked the laity and terrified the women ; 
saying that it was a thing neither lawful nor in any 
way holy ; for that the bodies of the patriarchs and 
prophets are to this day preserved in sepulchres, and 
that the very body of our Lord was laid in a sepulchre, 
and a stone placed over it to hide it, till he rose the 
third day. And thus saying he showed that those 
broke the law who did not bury the corpses of the 
dead, even if they were holy ; for what is greater or 
more holy than the Lord's body ? Many, then, when 
they heard him, buried thenceforth underground ; and 
blessed the Lord that they had been taught rightly. 
Being then aware of this, and afraid lest they should 
do the same by his body, he hurried himself, and bade 
farewell to the monks in the outer mountain ; and 
coming to the inner mountain, where he was wont to 
abide, after a few months he grew sick, and calling 
those who were by — and there were two of them who 
had remained there within fifteen years, exercising 
themselves and ministering to him on account of his 
old age — he said to them, " I indeed go the way of 
the fathers, as it is written, for I perceive that I am 
called by the Lord." . . . 

[Then follows a general exhortation to the monks 

• Evidently the primaeval custom of embalming the dead, and keep- 
ing mummies in the house, still lingered among the Egyptians. 



THE HERMITS. 



83 



almost identical with much that has gone before, and 
ending by a command that his body should be buried 
in the ground.] 

" And let this word of mine be kept by you, so that 
no one shall know the place, save you alone, for I shall 
receive it (my body) incorruptible from my Saviour 
in the resurrection of the dead. And distribute 
my garments thus. To Athanasius the bishop give 
one of my sheepskins, and the cloak under me, which 
was new when he gave it me, and has grown old by 
me ; and to Serapion the bishop give the other sheep- 
skin ; and do you have the hair-cloth garment. And 
for the rest, children, farewell, for Antony is going, 
and is with you no more." 

Saying thus, when they had embraced him, he 
stretched out his feet, and, as if he saw friends coming 
to him, and grew joyful ou their account (for, as he 
lay, his countenance was bright), he departed and 
was gathered to his fathers. And they forthwith, as 
he had commanded them, preparing the body and 
wrapping it up, hid it underground : and no one knows 
to this day where it is hidden, save those two servants 
only. And each (i.e. Athanasius and Serapion) having 
received the sheepskin of the blessed Antony, and 
the cloak which he had worn out, keeps them as 
a great possession. For he who looks on them f 
as it were, sees Antony; and he who puts them 
on, wears them with joy, as he does Antony's 
counsels. 

Such was the end of Antony in the body, and 
such the beginning of his training. And if these 



8 4 THE HERMITS. 

things are small in comparison with his virtue, yet 
reckon up from these things how great was Antony, 
the man of God, who kept unchanged, from his youth 
up to so great an age, the earnestness of his train- 
ing ; and was neither worsted in his old age by the 
desire of more delicate food, nor on account of the 
weakness of his body altered the quality of his gar- 
ment, nor even washed his feet with water ; and yet 
remained uninjured in all his limbs: for his eyes 
were undimmed and whole, so that he saw well ; and 
not one of his teeth had fallen out, but they were 
only worn down to his gums on account of his great 
age ; and he remained sound in hand and foot ; and, 
in a word, appeared ruddier and more ready for exer- 
tion than all who use various meats and baths, and 
different dresses. But that this man should be cele- 
brated everywhere and wondered at by all, and 
regretted even by those who never saw him, is a 
proof of his virtue, and that his soul was dear to God. 
For Antony became known not by writings, not 
from the wisdom that is from without, not by any 
art, but by piety alone ; and that this was the gift 
of God, none can deny. For how as far as Spain, 
as Gaul, as Rome, as Africa, could he have been 
heard, hidden as he was in a mountain, if it had 
not been for God, who makes known his own men 
everywhere, and who had promised Antony this from 
the beginning ? For even if they do their deeds in 
secret, and wish to be concealed, yet the Lord shows 
them as lights to all, that so those who hear of 
them may know that the commandments suffice to 



THE HERMITS. 



35 



put men in the right way, and may grow zealous of 
the path of virtue. 

Read then these things to the other brethren, that 
they may learn what the life of monks should be, and 
may believe that the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour 
will glorify those who glorify him, and that those 
who serve him to the end he will not only bring to 
the kingdom of heaven, but that even if on earth 
they hide themselves and strive to get out of the 
way, he will make them manifest and celebrated 
everywhere, for the sake of their own virtue, and for 
the benefit of others. But if need be, read this also 
to the heathens, that even thus they may learn that 
our Lord Jesus Christ is not only Lord and the Son 
of God, but that those who truly serve him, and be- 
lieve piously on him, not only prove that those 
daemons whom the Greeks think are gods to be no 
gods, but even tread them under foot, and chase them 
out as deceivers and corrupters of men, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory and honor 
for ever and ever. Amen. 

Thus ends this strange story. What we are to 
think of the miracles and wonders contained in it, 
will be discussed at a later point in this book. Mean- 
while there is a stranger story still connected with 
the life of St. Antony. It professes to have been 
told by him himself to his monks ; and whatever 
groundwork of fact there may be in it is doubtless 
his. The form in which we have it was given it by 
the famous St. Jerome, who sends the tale as a letter 



86 THE HERMITS, 

to Asella, one of the many noble Roman ladies 
whom he persuaded to embrace the monastic life. 
The style is as well worth preserving as the matter. 
Its ruggedness and awkwardness, its ambition and 
affectation, contrasted with the graceful simplicity of 
Athanasius's "Life of Antony," mark well the differ- 
ence between the cultivated Greek and the ungrace- 
ful and half-barbarous Roman of the later Empire. I 
have, therefore, given it as literally as possible, that 
readers may judge for themselves how some of the 
Great Fathers of the fifth century wrote, and what 
they believed. 



THE HERMITS. %-j 



THE LIFE OF SAINT PAUL, 
THE FIRST HERMIT. 

BY THE DIVINE HIERONYMUS, THE PRIEST. 
(ST. JEROME.} 

PROLOGUE. 

Many have often donbted by which of the monks 
the desert was first inhabited. For some, looking for 
the beginnings of Monachism in earlier ages, have 
deduced it from the blessed Elias and John ; of whom 
Elias seems to us to have been rather a prophet 
than a monk ; and John to have begun to prophesy 
before he was born. But others (an opinion in which 
all the common people are agreed) assert that An- 
tony was the head of this rule of life, which is partly 
true. For he was not so much himself the first 
of all, as the man who excited the earnestness of all. 
But Amathas and Macarius, Antony's disciples (the 
former of whom buried his master's body), even now 
affirm that a certain Paul, a Theban, was the be- 
ginner of the matter ; which (not so much in name as 
in opinion) we also hold to be true. Some scatter 



88 THE HEK MITS. 

about, as the fancy takes them, both this and other 
stories ; inventing incredible tales of a man in a sub- 
terranean cave, hairy down to his heels, and many 
other things, which it is tedious to follow out. For, 
as their lie is shameless, their opinfon does not seem 
worth refuting. 

Therefore, because careful accounts of Antony, 
both in Greek and Roman style, have been handed 
down, I have determined to write a little about the 
beginning and end of Paul's life ; more because the 
matter has been omitted, than trusting to my own wit. 
But how he lived during middle life, or what strata- 
gems of Satan he endured, is known to none. 



THE LIFE OF PAUL. 

Under Decius and Valerius, the persecutors, at 
the time when Cornelius at Rome, and Cyprian at 
Carthage, were condemned in blessed blood, a cruel 
tempest swept over many Churches in Egypt and the 
Thebaid. 

Christian subjects in those days longed to be 
smitten with the sword for the name of Cnrist. But 
the crafty enemy, seeking out punishments which 
delayed death, longed to slay souls, not bodies. And 
as Cyprian himself (who suffered by him) says ; 
" When they longed to die, they were not allowed 
to be slain." In order to make his cruelty better 



THE HERMITS. 



8 9 



known, we have set down two examples for remem- 
brance. 

A martyr, persevering in the faith, and conqueror 
amid racks and red-hot irons, he commanded to be 
anointed with honey and laid on his back under a 
burning sun, with his hands tied behind him ; in order, 
forsooth, that he who had already conquered the fiery 

gridiron, might yield to the stings of flies. 

* ****** 

In those days, in the Lower Thebaid, was Paul left 
at the death of both his parents, in a rich inheritance, 
with a sister already married ; being about fifteen 
years old, well taught in Greek and Egyptian letters, 
gentle tempered, loving God much ; and, when the 
storm of persecution burst, he withdrew into a distant 
city. But 

" To what dost thou not urge the human breast 
Curst hunger after gold ? " 

His sister's husband was ready to betray him whom 
he should have concealed. Neither the tears of his 
wife, the tie of blood, or God who looks on all things 
from on high, could call him back from his crime. 
He was at hand, ready to seize him, making piety a 
pretext for cruelty. The boy discovered it, and fled 
into the desert hills. Once there he changed need 
into pleasure, and going on, and then stopping awhile, 
again and again, reached at last a stony cliff, at the 
foot whereof was, nigh at hand, a great cave, its mouth 
closed with a stone. Having moved which away (as 
man's longing is to know the hidden), exploring more 



qo THE HERMITS. 

greedily, he sees within a great hall, open to the sky 
above, but shaded by the spreading boughs of an an- 
cient palm ; and in it a clear spring, the rill from 
which, flowing a short space forth, was sucked up 
again by the same soil which had given it birth. 
There were besides in that cavernous mountain not a 
few dwellings, in which he saw rusty anvils and 
hammers, with which coin had been stamped of old. 
For this place (so books say) was the workshop for 
base coin in the days when Antony lived with Cleo- 
patra. 

Therefore, in this beloved dwelling, offered him as 
it were by God, he spent all his life in prayer and 
solitude, while the palm-tree gave him food and 
clothes ; which lest it should seem impossible to some, 
I call Jesus and his holy angels to witness that I have 
seen monks one of whom, shut up for thirty years, 
lived on barley bread and muddy water ; another in 
an old cistern, which in the country speech they call 
the Syrian's bed, was kept alive on five figs each day. 
These things, therefore, will seem incredible to those 
who do not believe ; for to those who do believe all 
things are possible. 

But to return thither whence I digressed. When 
the blessed Paul had been leading the heavenly life on 
earth for 113 years, and Antony, ninety years old, 
was dwelling in another solitude, this thought (so 
Antony was wont to assert) entered his mind — that 
no monk more perfect than he had settled in the 
desert. But as he lay still by night, it was revealed 
to him that there was another monk beyond him far 



The hermits. 



9 1 



better than he, to visit whom he must set out. So 
when the light broke, the venerable old man, support- 
ing his weak limbs on a staff, began to will to go, he 
knew not whither. And now the midday, with the 
sun roasting above, grew fierce ; and yet he was not 
turned from the journey he had begun, saying, " I 
trust in my God, that he will show his servant that 
which he has promised." And as he spake, he sees a 
man half horse, to whom the poets have given the 
name of Hippocentaur. Seeing whom, he crosses his 
forehead with the salutary impression of the Cross, 
and, "Here ! " he says, " in what part here does a 
servant of God dwell ? " But he, growling I know not 
what barbarous sound, and grinding rather than 
uttering, the words, attempted a courteous speech 
from lips rough with bristles, and, stretching out 
his right hand pointed to the way ; then, fleeing 
swiftly across the open plains, vanished from the 
eyes of the wondering Antony. But whether the 
devil took this form to terrify him ; or whether the 
desert, fertile (as is its wont), in monstrous animals, 
begets that beast likewise, we hold as uncertain. 

So Antony, astonished, and thinking over what 
he had seen, goes forward. Soon afterwards, he sees 
in a stony valley a short manikin, with crooked nose 
and brow rough with horns, whose lower parts ended 
in goat's feet. Undismayed by this spectacle like- 
wise, Antony seized, like a good warrior, the shield 
of faith and habergeon of hope ; the animal, however, 
was bringing him dates, as food for his journey, and a 
pledge of peace. When he saw that, Antony pushed 



92 THE HERMITS. 

on, and, asking him who he was, was answered, "I 
am a mortal, and one of the inhabitants of the desert, 
whom the Gentiles, deluded by various errors, worship 
by the name of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. I come as 
ambassador from our herd, that thou mayst pray 
for us to the common God, who, we know, has come 
for the salvation of the world, and his sound is gone 
out into all lands." As he spoke thus, the aged way- 
farer bedewed his face plenteously with tears, which 
the greatness of his joy had poured forth as signs of 
his heart. For he rejoiced at the glory of Christ, and 
the destruction of Satan ; and, wondering at the same 
time that he could understand the creature's speech 
he smote on the ground with his staff, and said, " Woe 
to thee, Alexandria, who worshippest portents instead 
of God ! Woe to thee, harlot city, into which all the 
daemons of the world have flowed together ! What wilt 
thou say now ? Beasts talk of Christ, and thou wor- 
shippest portents instead of God." He had hardly 
finished his words, when the swift beast fled away as 
upon wings. Lest this should move a scruple in any 
one on account of its incredibility, it was corrobo- 
rated, in the reign of Constantine, by the testimony 
of the whole world. For a man of that kind, being 
led alive to Alexandria, afforded a great spectacle to 
the people ; and afterwards the lifeless carcase, being 
salted lest it should decay in the summer heat, was 
brought to Antioch, to be seen by the Emperor. 

But, to go on with my tale, Antony went on 
through that region, seeing only the tracks of wild 
beasts, and the wide waste of the desert. What he 






THE HERMITS. 



93 



should do, or whither turn, he knew not. A second 
day had now run by. One thing remained, to be 
confident that he could not be deserted by Christ. 
All night through he spent a second darkness in 
prayer, and while the light was still dim, he sees 
afar a she-wolf, panting with heat and thirst, creep- 
ing in at the foot of the mountain. Following her 
with his eyes, and drawing nigh to the cave when 
the beast was gone, he began to look in ; but in vain ; 
for the darkness stopped his view. However, as the 
Scripture saith, perfect love casteth out fear ; with 
gentle step and bated breath the cunning explorer 
entered, and going forward slowly, and stopping 
often, watched for a sound. At length he saw afar 
off a light through the horror of the darkness ; 
hastened on more greedily ; struck his foot against a 
stone ; and made a noise, at which the blessed Paul 
shut and barred his door, which had stood open. 

Then Antony, casting himself down before the 
entrance, prayed there till the six* hour, and more, 
to be let in, saying, " Who I am, and whence, and 
why I am come, thou knowest. I know that I de- 
serve not to see thy face ; yet, unless I see thee, 
I will not return. Thou who receivest beasts, why 
repellest thou a man ? I have sought, and I have 
found. I knock, that it may be opened to me : which 
if I win not, here will I die before thy gate. Surely 
thou shalt at least bury my corpse." 

" Persisting thus he spoke, and stood there fixed: 
To whom the hero shortly thus replied." 

"No one begs thus to threaten. No one doe? 



94 



THE HERMITS. 



injury with tears. And dost thou wonder why I do 
not let thee in, seeing thou art a mortal guest ? " 

Then Paul,smiling, opened the door. They mingled 
mutual embraces, and saluted each other by their 
names, and committed themselves in common to the 
grace of God. And after the holy kiss, Paul sitting 
down with Antony thus began, — 

" Behold him, whom thou hast sought with such 
labor ; with limbs decayed by age, and covered with 
unkempt white hair. Behold, thou seest but a mortal, 
soon to become dust. But, because charity bears all 
things, tell me, I pray thee, how fares the human race ? 
whether new houses are rising in the ancient cities ? 
by what emperor is the world governed ? whether 
there are any left who are led captive by the deceits 
of the devil ? " As they spoke thus, they saw a 
raven settle on a bough ; who, flying gently down, laid, 
to their wonder, a whole loaf before them. When he 
was gone, " Ah," said Paul, " the Lord, truly loving, 
truly merciful, hath sent us a meal. For sixty years 
past I have received daily half a loaf, but at thy 
coming Christ hath doubled his soldiers' allowance." 
Then, having thanked God, they sat down on the 
brink of the glassy spring. 

But here a contention arising as to which of them 
should break the loaf, occupied the day till well-nigh 
evening. Paul insisted, as the host ; Antony declined, 
as the younger man. At last it was agreed that they 
should take hold of the loaf at opposite ends, and 
each pull towards himself, and keep what was lett 
in his hand. Next they stooped down, and drank a 



THE HERMITS. 9S 

little water from the spring ; then, immolating to God 
the sacrifice of praise, passed the night watching. 

And when day dawned again, the blessed Paul 
said to Antony, " I knew long since, brother, that 
thou wert dwelling in these lands ; long since God 
had promised thee to me as a fellow servant : but be- 
cause the time of my falling asleep is now come, and 
(because I always longed to depart, and to be with 
Christ) there is laid up for me when I have finished 
my course a crown of righteousness ; therefore thou 
art sent from the Lord to cover my corpse with 
mould, and give back dust to dust." 

Antony, hearing this, prayed him with tears and 
groans not to desert him, but take him as his com- 
panion on such a journey. But he said, " Thou must 
not seek the things which are thine own, but the 
things of others. It is expedient for thee, indeed, to 
cast off the burden of the flesh, and to follow the 
Lamb : but it is expedient for the rest of the brethren 
that they should be still trained by thine example. 
Wherefore go, unless it displease thee, and bring the 
cloak which Athanasius the bishop gave thee, to wrap 
up my corpse." But this the blessed Paul asked, not 
because he cared greatly whether his body decayed 
covered or bare (as one who for so long a time was 
used to clothe himself with woven palm leaves), but 
that Antony's gr;jf at his death might be lightened 
when he left him. Antony astounded that he had 
heard of Athanasius and his own cloak, seeing as it 
were Christ in Paul, and venerating the God within 
his breast, dared answer nothing : but keeping in si- 



9 ,', THE HERMITS. 

lence, and kissing his eyes and hands, returned to the 
monastery, which afterwards was occupied by the Sara, 
cens. His steps could not follow his spirit ; but, 
although his body was empty with fastings, and 
broken with old age, yet his courage conquered his 
years. At last, tired and breathless, he arrived at 
home. There two disciples met him, who had been 
long sent to minister to him, and asked him, "Where 
hast thou tarried so long, father ? " He answered, 
"Woe to me a sinner, who falsely bear the name of 
a monk. I have seen Elias ; I have seen John in the 
desert ; I have truly seen Paul in Paradise ; " and so, 
closing his lips, and beating his breast, he took the 
cloak from his cell, and when his disciples asked him 
to explain more fully what had befallen, he said, 
" There is a time to be silent, and a time to speak." 
Then going out, and not taking even a morsel of food, 
he returned by the way he had come. For he feared 
— what actually happened — lest Paul in his absence 
should render up the soul he owed to Christ. 

And when the second day had shone, and he had 
retraced his steps for three hours, he saw amid hosts 
of angels, amid the choirs of prophets and apostles, 
Paul shining white as snow, ascending up on high ; 
and forthwith falling on his face, he cast sand on his 
head, and weeping and wailing, said, " Why dost thou 
dismiss me, Paul ? Why dost thou depart without 
a farewell ? So late known, dost thou vanish so 
soon ? " The blessed Antony used to tell after- 
wards, how he ran the rest of the way so swiftly that 
he flew like a bird. Nor without cause. For enter. 



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97 



ing the cave he saw, with bended knees, erect neck, 
and hands spread out on high, a lifeless corpse. And 
at first, thinking that it still lived, he prayed in like 
wise. But when he heard no sighs (as usual) come from 
the worshipper's breast, he fell to a tearful kiss, under- 
standing how the very corpse of the saint was praying, 
in seemly attitude, to that God to whom all live. 

So, having wrapped up and carried forth the corpse, 
and chanting hymns of the Christian tradition, 
Antony grew sad, because he had no spade, where- 
with to dig the ground ; and thinking over many plans 
in his mind, said, " If I go back to the monastery, it 
is a three day's journey. If I stay here, I shall be of 
no more use. I will die, then, as it is fit ; and falling 
beside thy warrior, Christ, breathe my last breath." 

As he was thinking thus to himself, lo ! two lions 
came running from the inner part of the desert, their 
manes tossing on their necks ; seeing whom he 
shuddered at first; and then, turning his mind to 
God, remained fearless, as though he were looking 
upon doves. They came straight to the corpse of the 
blessed old man, and crouched at his feet, wagging 
their tails, and roaring with mighty growls, so that An- 
tony understood them to lament, as best they could. 
Then not far off they began to claw the ground with their 
paws, and, carrying out the sand eagerly, dug a place 
large enough to hold a man ; then at once, as if beg- 
ging a reward for their work, they came to Antony, 
drooping their necks, and licking his hands and feet. 
But he perceived that they prayed a blessing from 
him ; and at once, bursting into praise of Christ, 
7 



9 8 THE HERMITS. 

because even dumb animals felt that he was God, he 
saith, " Lord, without whose word not a leaf of the 
tree drops, nor one sparrow falls to the ground, give \ 
to them as thou knowest how to give." And, signing 
to them with his hand, he bade them go. 

And when they had departed, he bent his aged 
shoulders to the weight of the holy corpse ; and lay 
ing it in the grave, heaped earth on it, and raised a 
mound as is the wont. And when another dawn 
shone, lest the pious heir should not possess aught of 
the goods of the intestate dead, he kept for himself 
the tunic which Paul had woven, as baskets are made, 
out of the leaves of the palm ; and returning to the 
monastery, told his disciples all throughout ; and, on 
the solemn days of Easter and Pentecost, always 
clothed himself in Paul's tunic. 

I am inclined, at the end of my treatise, to ask 
those who know not the extent of their patrimonies ; 
who cover their houses with marbles ; who sew the 
price of whole farms into their garments with a single 
thread, What was ever wanting to this naked old man ? 
Ye drink from a gem ; he satisfied nature from the 
hollow of his hands. Ye weave gold into your tunics ; 
he had not even the vilest garment of your bond-slave. 
But, on the other hand, to that poor man Paradise is 
open ; you, gilded as you are, Gehenna will receive. 
He, though naked, kept the garment of Christ ; you, 
clothed in silk, have lost Christ's robe. Paul lies 
covered with the meanest dust, to rise in glory ; you 
are crushed by wrought sepulchres of stone, to burn 
with all your works. Spare, I beseech you, yourselves ; 



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99 



spare, at least, the riches which you love. Why do 
you wrap even your dead in golden vestments ? Why 
does not ambition stop amid grief and tears ? Can- 
not the corpses of the rich decay, save in silk ? I 
beseech thee, whosoever thou art that readest this, 
to remember Hieronymus the sinner, who, if the 
Lord gave him choice, would much sooner choose 
Paul's tunic with his merits, than the purple of kings 
with their punishments. 

This is the story of Paul and Antony, as told by 
Jerome. But, in justice to Antony himself, it must 
be said that the sayings recorded of him seem to 
show that he was not the mere visionary ascetic which 
his biographers have made him. Some twenty ser- 
mons are attributed to him, seven of which only are 
considered to be genuine. A rule for monks, too, is 
called his : but, as it is almost certain that he could 
neither read nor write, we have no proof that any of 
these documents convey his actual language. If the 
seven sermons attributed to him be really his, it must 
be said for them that they are full of sound doctrine 
and vital religion, and worthy, as wholes, to be 
preached in any English church, if we only substitute 
for the word " monk," the word "man." 

But there are records of Antony which represent 
him as a far more genial and human personage ; full 
of a knowledge of human nature, and of a tenderness 
and sympathy, which account for his undoubted power 
over the minds of men ; and showing too, at times, a 
certain covert and " pawky " humor which puts us in 



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mind, as does the humor of many of the Egyptian 
hermits, of the old-fashioned Scotch. These remi- 
niscences are contained in the ''Words of the Elders," 
a series of anecdotes of the desert fathers collected 
by various hands ; which are, after all, the most inter- 
esting and probably the most trustworthy accounts 
of them and their ways. I shall have occasion to 
quote them later. I insert here some among them 
which relate to Antony. 



SAYINGS OF ANTONY, FROM THE "WORDS OF THE 
ELDERS." 

A monk gave away his wealth to the poor, but 
kept back some for himself. Antony said to him, 
" Go to the village and buy meat, and bring it to me 
on thy bare back." He did so : and the dogs and 
birds attacked him, and tore him as well as the meat. 
Quoth Antony, " So are those who renounce the world, 
and yet must needs have money, torn by daemons." 

Antony heard high praise of a certain brother ; but, 
when he tested him, he found that he was impatient 
under injury. Quoth Antony, " Thou art like a house 
which has a gay porch, but is broken into by thieves 
through the back door." 

Antony, as he sat in the desert, was weary in heart, 
and said, " Lord, I long to be saved, but my wander- 
ing thoughts will not let me. Show me what I shall 



THE HERMITS. IO x 

do." And looking up, he saw one like himself twist- 
ing ropes and rising up to pray. And the angel (for 
it was one) said to him, " Work like me, Antony, and 
you shall be saved." 

One asked him how he could please God. Quoth 
Antony, " Have God always before thine eyes ; what- 
ever work thou doest, take example for it out of Holy 
Scripture : wherever thou stoppest, do not move 
thence in a hurry, but abide there in patience. If 
thou keepest these three things, thou shalt be saved." 

Quoth Antony, " If the baker did not cover the 
mill-horse's eyes he would eat the corn, and take his 
own wages. So God covers our eyes, by leaving us 
to sordid thoughts, lest we should think of our own 
good works, and be puffed up in spirit." 

Quoth Antony, " I saw all the snares of the enemy 
spread over the whole earth. And I sighed, and said, 
' Who can pass through these ? ' And a voice came 
to me, saying, ' Humility alone can pass through, 
Antony, where the proud can in no wise go.' " 

Antony was sitting in his cell, and a voice said to 
him, " Thou hast not yet come to the stature of a 
currier, who lives in Alexandria." Then he took his 
staff, and went down to Alexandria and the currier, 
when he found him, was astonished at seeing so great 
a man. Said Antony, " Tell me thy works ; for on 
thy account have I come out of the desert." And he 
answered, " I know not that I ever did any good ; 
and, therefore, when I rise in the morning, I say that 
this whole city, from the greatest to the least, will 
enter into the kingdom of God for their righteousness : 



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W 



hile I, for my sins, shall go to eternal pain. And 
this I say over again, from the bottom of my heart, 
when I lie clown at night." When Antony heard 
that, he said, " Like a good goldsmith, thou hast gained 
the kingdom of God sitting still in thy house ; while 
I, as one without discretion, have been haunting the 
desert all my time, and yet not arrived at the measure 
of thy saying." 

Quoth Antony, " If a monk could tell his elders 
how many steps he walks, or how many cups of water 
he drinks, in his cell, he ought to tell them, for fear of 
going wrong therein." 

At Alexandria, Antony met one Didymus, most 
learned in the Scriptures, witty, and wise : but he 
was blind. Antony asked him, " Art thou not grieved 
at thy blindness ? " He was silent : but being pressed 
by Antony, he confessed that he was sad thereat. 
Quoth Antony, " I wonder that a prudent man grieves 
over the los-s of a thing which ants, and flies, and 
gnats have, instead of rejoicing in that possession 
which the holy Apostles earned. For it is better to 
see with the spirit than with the flesh." 

A Father asked Antony, " What shall I do ? " 
Quoth the old man, " Trust not in thine own righteous- 
ness ; regret not the thing which is past ; bridle thy 
tongue and thy stomach." 

Ouoth Antony, " He who sits still in the desert is 
safe from three enemies : from hearing, from speech, 
from sight : and has to fight against only one, his own 
heart." 

A young monk came and told Antony how he had 



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103 



seen some old men weary on their journey, and had 
bidden the wild asses to come and carry him, and 
they came. Quoth Antony, " That monk looks to me 
like a ship laden with a precious cargo ; but whether 
it will get into port is uncertain." And after some 
clays he began to tear his hair and weep ; and when 
they asked him why, he said, " A great pillar of the 
Church has just fallen ; " and he sent brothers to see the 
young man, and found him sitting on his mat, weep- 
ing over a great sin which he had done ; and he said, 
"Tell Antony to give me ten days' truce, and I hope 
I shall satisfy him ; " and in five days he was dead. 

Abbot Elias fell into temptation, and the brethren 
drove him out. Then he went to the mountain to 
Antony. After awhile, Antony sent him home to his 
brethren ; but they would not receive him. Then the 
old man sent to them, and saying, "A ship has been 
wrecked at sea, and lost all its cargo : and, with 
much toil, the ship is come empty to land. Will you 
sink it again in the sea ?" So they took Elias back. 

Quoth Antony, " There are some who keep their 
bodies in abstinence : but because they have no dis- 
cretion, they are far from God." 

A hunter came by, and saw Antony rejoicing with 
the brethren, and it displeased him. Quoth Antony, 
"Put an arrow in thy bow, and draw;" and he did. 
Quoth Antony, " Draw higher ; " and again, " Draw 
higher still." And he said, " If I overdraw, I shall 
break my bow." Quoth Antony, "So it is in the 
work of God. If we stretch the brethren beyond 
measure, they fail." 



104 THE HERMITS. 

A brother said to Antony, " Pray for me." Quoth 
he, " I cannot pity thee, nor God either, unless thou 
pitiest thyself, and prayest to God." 

Quoth Antony, "The Lord does not permit wars 
to arise in this generation, because he knows that men 
are weak, and cannot bear them." 

Antony, as he considered the depths of the judg- 
ments of God, failed; and said, " Lord, why do some 
die so early, and some live on to a decrepit age ? 
Why are some needy, and others rich ? Why are the 
unjust wealthy, and the just poor?" And a voice 
came to him, " Antony, look to thyself. These are 
the judgments of God, which are not fit for thee to 
know." 

Quoth Antony to Abbot Pastor, " 1 his is a man's 
great business — to lay each man his own fault on 
himself before the Lord, and to expect temptation to 
the last day of his life." 

Quoth Antony, " If a man works a few days, and 
then is idle, and works again and is idle again, he 
does nothing, and will not possess the perseverance 
of patience." 

Quoth Antony to his disciples, " If you try to 
keep silence, do not think that you are exercising a 
virtue, but that you are unworthy to speak." 

Certain old men came once to Antony ; and he 
wished to prove them, and began to talk of holy 
Scripture, and to ask them, beginning at the youngest, 
what this and that text meant. And each answered 
as best they could. But he kept on saying, " You 
have not vet found it out." And at last he asked 



THE HERMITS. 



i°S 



Abbot Joseph, "And what dost thou think this text 
means ? " Quoth Abbot Joseph, " i do not know." 
Quoth Antony, " Abbot Joseph alone has found out 
the way, for he says he does not know it." 

Quoth Antony, " I do not now fear God, but love 
Him, for love drives out fear." 

He said again, " Life and death are very near us ; 
for if we gain our brother, we gain God : but if we 
cause our brother to offend, we sin against Christ." 

A philosopher asked Antony, " How art thou 
content, father, since thou has not the comfort of 
books ?" Quoth Antony, " My book is the nature of 
created things. In it, when I choose, I can read the 
words of God." 

Brethren came to Antony, and asked of him a 
saying by which they might be saved. Quoth he, " Ye 
have heard the Scriptures, and know what Christ 
requires of you." But they begged that he would tell 
them something of his own. Quoth he, " The Gospel 
says, ' If a man smite you on one cheek, turn to him 
the other.' " But they said that they could not do 
that. Quoth he, " You cannot turn the other cheek 
to him ? Then let him smite you again on the same 
one." But they said they could not do that either. 
Then said he, " If you cannot, at least do not return 
evil for evil." And when they said that neither could 
they do that, quoth Antony to his disciples, " Go, get 
them something to eat, for they are very weak." And 
he said to them, "If you cannot do the one, and will 
not have the other, what do you want ? As I see, 



1o 5 THE HERMITS. 

what you want is prayer. That will heal your 



weakness. 



Ouoth Antony, " He who would be free from his 
sins must be so by weeping and mourning; and he 
who would be built up in virtue must be built up by 



-.- 



Quoth Antony, "When the stomach is full of 
meat, forthwith the great vices bubble out, according 
to that which the Saviour says : ' That which entereth 
into the mouth defileth not the man ; but that which 
cometh out of the heart sinks a man in destruction.' " 

[This may be a somewhat paradoxical application 
of the text : but the last anecdote of Antony which I 
shall quote is full of wisdom and humanity.] 

A monk came from Alexandria, Eulogius by name, 
bringing with him a man afflicted with elephantiasis. 
Now Eulogius had been a scholar, learned, and rich, 
and had given away all he had save a very little, 
which he kept because he could not work with his 
own hands. 

And he told Antony how he had found that 
wretched man lying in the street fifteen years before, 
having lost then nearly every member save his 
tongue, and how he had taken him home to his cell, 
nursed him, bathed him, physicked him, fed him; and 
how the man had returned him nothing save slan- 
ders, curses, and insults ; how he had insisted on 
having meat, and had had it ; and on going out in 
public, and had company brought to him ; and how 
he had at last demanded to be put down again whence 
he had been taken, always cursing and slandering. 



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[07 



And now Eulogius could bear the man no longer 
and was minded to take him at his word. 

Then said Antony with an angry voice, " Wilt thou 
cast him out, Eulogius ? He who remembers that he 
made him, will not cast him out. If thou cast him 
out, he will find a better friend than thee. God will 
choose some one who will take him up when he is 
cast away." Eulogius was terrified at these words, 
and held his peace. 

Then went Anthony to the sick man, and shouted 
at him, " Thou elephantiac, foul with mud and dirt, 
not worthy of the third heaven, wilt thou not stop 
shouting blasphemies against God ? Dost thou not 
know that he who ministers to thee is Christ ? How 
darest thou say such things against Christ ? " And 
he bade Eulogius and the sick man go back to their 
cell, and live in peace, and never part more. Both 
went back, and, after forty days, Eulogius died, and 
the sick man shortly after, " altogether whole in 
spirit." 



io 8 THE HERMITS, 



HILARION. 

I would gladly, did space allow, give more biog- 
raphies from among those of the Egyptian hermits : 
but it seems best, having shown the reader Antony 
as the father of Egyptian monachism, to go on to his 
great pupil Hilarion, the father of monachism in 
Palestine. His life stands written at length by St. 
Jerome, who himself died a monk at Bethlehem ; and 
is composed happily in a less ambitious and less 
rugged style than that of Paul, not without elements 
of beauty, even of tragedy. 

PROLOGUE. 

Remember me in thy holy prayers, glory and 
honor of virgins, nun Asella. Before beginning to 
write the life of the blessed Hilarion, I invoke the 
Holy Spirit which dwelt in him, that, as he largely be- 
stowed virtues on Hilarion, he may give to me speech 
wherewith to relate them ; so that his deeds may be 
equalled by my language. For those who (as Cris- 
pus says) " have wrought virtues " are held to have 
been worthily praised in proportion to the words in 
which famous intellects have been able to extol them. 



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09 



Alexander the Great, the Macedonian (whom Daniel 
calls either the brass, or the leopard, or the he-goat) 
on coming to the tomb of Achilles, " Happy art thou, 
youth," he said, " who hast been blest with a great 
herald of thy worth " — meaning Homer. But I have 
to tell the conversation and life of such and so great 
a man, that even Homer, were he here, would either 
envy my matter, or succumb under it. 

For although St. Epipbanius, bishop of Salamina in 
Cyprus, who had much intercourse with Hilarion, 
has written his praise in a short epistle, which is 
commonly read, yet it is one thing to praise the 
dead in general phrases, another to relate his special 
virtues. We therefore set to work rather to his 
advantage than to his injury; and despise those 
evil-speakers who lately carped at Paul, and will 
perhaps now carp at my Hilarion, unjustly blaming 
the former for his solitary life, and the latter for his 
intercourse with men ; in order that the one, who was 
never seen, may be supposed not to have existed ; 
the other, who was seen by many, may be held cheap. 
This was the way of their ancestors likewise, the 
Pharisees, who were neither satisfied with John's 
desert life and fasting, nor with the Lord Saviour's 
public life, eating and drinking. But I shall lay my 
hand to the work which I have determined, and pass 
by, with stopped ears, the hounds of Scylla. I pray 
that thou mayest persevere in Christ, and be mindful 
of me in thy prayers, most sacred virgin. 



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THE LIFE. 



Hilar i on was born in the village of Thabatha, 
which lies about five miles to the south of Gaza, in 
Palestine. He had parents given to the worship of 
idols, and blossomed (as the saying is) a rose among 
the thorns. Sent by them to Alexandria, he was en- 
trusted to a grammarian, and there, as far as his years 
allowed, gave proof of great intellect and good morals. 
He was soon dear to all, and skilled in the art of 
speaking. And, what is more than all, he believed in 
the Lord Jesus, and delighted neither in the madness 
of the circus, in the blood of the arena, or in the 
luxury of the theatre : but all his heart was in the 
congregation of the Church. 

But hearing the then famous name of Antony 
which was carried throughout all Egypt, he was fired 
with a longing to visit him, and went to the desert. 
As soon as he saw him he changed his dress, and 
stayed with him about two months, watching the order 
of his life, and the purity of his manner ; how frequent 
he was in prayers, how humble in receiving brethren, 
severe in reproving them, eager in exhorting them ; 
and how no infirmity ever broke through his con- 
tinence, and the coarseness of his food. But, unable 
to bear longer the crowd which assembled round 
Antony, for various diseases and attacks of devils, 
he said that it was not consistent to endure in the 



THE HERMITS. m 

desert the crowds of cities, but that he must rather 
begin where Antony had begun. Antony, as a 
valiant man, was receiving the reward of victory : he 
had not yet begun to serve as a soldier. He re- 
turned, therefore, with certain monks to his own 
country ; and, finding his parents dead, gave away 
part of his substance to the brethren, part to the 
poor and kept nothing at all for himself, fearing what 
is told in the Acts of the Apostles, the example or 
punishment, of Ananias and Sapphira ; and espe- 
cially mindful of the Lord's saying — " He that leav- 
eth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." 

He was then fifteen years old. So, naked, but 
armed in Christ, he entered the desert, which, seven 
miles from Maiuma, the port of Gaza, turns away to 
the left of those who go along the shore towards 
Egypt. And though the place was blood-stained by 
robbers, and his relations and friends warned him of 
the imminent danger, he despised death, in order to 
escape death. Alll wondered at his spirit, wondered 
at his youth. Save that a certain fire of the bosom and 
spark of faith glittered in his eyes, his cheeks were 
smooth, his body delicate and thin, unable to bear 
any injury, and liable to be overcome by even a light 
chill or heat. 

So, covering his limbs only with a sackcloth, and 
having a cloak of skin, which the blessed Antony 
had given him at starting, and a rustic cloak, between 
the sea and the swamp, he enjoyed the vast and 
terrible solitude, feeding on only fifteen figs after the 
setting of the sun ; and because the region was, as 



1I2 THE HERMITS. 

has been said above, of ill-repute from robberies 
no man bad ever stayed before in that place. 
The devil, seeing what he was doing and whither 
he had gone, was tormented. And though he, who 
of old boasted, saying, " I shall ascend into heaven > 
I shall sit above the stars of heaven, and shall be 
like unto the Most High," now saw that he had 
been conquered by a boy, and trampled under foot 
by him, ere, on account of his youth, he could com- 
mit sin. He therefore began to tempt his senses; 
but he, enraged with himself, and beating his breast 
with his fist, as if he could drive out thoughts by 
blows, '' I will force thee, mine ass," said he, "not to 
kick ; and feed thee with straw, not barley. I will 
wear thee out with hunger and thirst ; I will burden 
thee with heavy loads ; I will hunt thee through heat 
and cold, till thou thinkest more of food than of play." 
He therefore sustained his fainting spirit with the 
juice of herbs and a few figs, after each three or four 
days, praying frequently, and singing psalms, and 
digging the ground with a mattock, to double the 
labor of fasting by that of work. At the same time, 
by weaving baskets of rushes, he imitated the disci- 
pline of the Egyptian monks, and the Apostle's saying, 
" He that will not work, neither let him eat,"till he 
was so attenuated, and his body so exhausted, that 
it scarce clung to his bones. 

One night he began to hear the crying* of 

* These sounds, like those which St. uthlac heard in the English 
fens, are plainly those of wild-fowl 



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"3 



infants, the bleating of sheep, the wailing of women, the 
roaring of lions, the murmur of an army, and utterly 
portentous and barbarous voices ; so that he shrank 
frightened by the sound ere he saw aught. He 
understood these to be the insults of devils ; and, 
falling on his knees, he signed the cross of Christ 
on his forehead, and armed with that helmet, and 
girt with the breastplate of faith, he fought more 
valiantly as he lay, longing somehow to see what 
he shuddered to hear, and looking round him with 
anxious eyes ; when, without warning, by the bright 
moonshine he saw a chariot with fiery horses rushing 
upon him. But when he had called on Jesus, the 
earth opened suddenly, and the whole pomp was swal- 
lowed up before his eyes. Then said he, " The horse 
and his rider he hath drowned in the sea ; " and " Some 
glory themselves in chariots, and some in horses : but 
we in the name of the Lord our God." Many were 
his temptations, and various, by day and night, the 
snares of the devils. If we were to tell them all, they 
would make the volume too long. How often did 
women appear to him ; how often plenteous banquets 
when he was hungry. Sometimes as he prayed, a 
howling wolf ran past him, or a barking fox ; or as he 
sang, a fight of gladiators made a show for him : and 
one of them, as if slain, falling at his feet, prayed for 
sepulture. He prayed once with his head bowed to 
the ground, and — as is the nature of man — his mind 
wandered from his prayer, and thought of I know 
not what, when a mocking rider leaped on his back, 
and spurring his sides, and whipping his neck, 
8 






il 4 THE HERMITS. 

" Come," he cries, " come, run ! why do you sleep ?'' 
and, laughing loudly over him, asked him if he were 
tired, or would have a feed of barley. 

So from his sixteenth to his twentieth year, he 
was sheltered from the heat and rain in a tiny cabin, 
which he had woven of rush and sedge. Afterwards he 
built a little cell, which remains to this day, four feet 
wide and five feet high — that is, lower than his own 
stature — and somewhat longer than his small body 
needed, so that you would believe it to be a tomb 
rather than a dwelling. He cut his hair only once a 
year, on Easter-day, and lay till his death on the bare 
ground and a layer of rushes, never washing the sack, 
in which he was clothed, and saying that it was 
superfluous to seek for cleanliness in hair-cloth. 
Nor did he change his tunic, till the first was utterly 
in rags. He knew the Scriptures by heart, and re- 
eited them after his prayers and psalms as if God 
were present. And, because it would take up too 
much time to tell his great deeds one by one, I will 
give a short account of them. 

[Then follows a series of miracles, similar to those 
attributed to St. Antony, and, indeed, to all these 
great Hermit Fathers. But it is unnecessary to 
relate more wonders which the reader cannot be 
expected to believe. These miracles, however, 
according to St. Jerome, were the foundations of 
Hilarion's fame and public career. For he says, 
" When they were noised abroad, people flowed 
to him eagerly from Syria to Egypt, so that many 
believed in Christ, and professed themselves to be 



THE HERMITS. 



IJ S 



monks — for no one had known of a monk in Syria 
before the holy Hilarion. He was the first founder 
and teacher of this conversation and study in the 
province. The Lord Jesus had in Egypt the old man 
Antony ; he had in Palestine the young Hilarion 
.... He was raised, indeed, by the Lord to such a 
glory, that the blessed Antony, hearing of his conver- 
sation, wrote to him, and willingly received his 
letters ; and if rich people came to him from the parts 
of Syria, he said to them, ' Why have you chosen to 
trouble yourselves by coming so far, when you have 
at home my son Hilarion ? ' So by his example in- 
numerable monasteries arose throughout all Palestine, 
and all monks came eagerly to him .... But what 
a care he had, not to pass by any brother, however 
humble or however poor, may be shown by this ; that 
once going into the Desert of Kadesh, to visit one of 
his disciples, he came, with an infinite crowd of monks, 
to Elusa, on the very day, as it chanced, on which a 
yearly solemnity had gathered all the people of the 
town to the Temple of Venus ; for they honored her on 
account of the morning star, to the worship of which 
the nation of the Saracens is devoted. The town 
itself too is said to be in great part semi-barbarous, 
on account of its remote situation. Hearing, then, 
that the holy Hilarion was passing by — for he had 
often cured Saracens possessed with dasmons — they 
came out to meet him in crowds, with their wives and 
children, bowing their necks, and crying in the Syrian 
tongue, ' Barech ! ' that is, ' Bless ! ' He received 
them courteously and humbly, entreating them to 



Il6 THE HERMITS. 

worship God rather than stones, and wept abundantly, 
looking up to heaven, and promising them that, if they 
would believe in Christ, he would come oftener to 
them. Wonderful was the grace of the Lord. They 
would not let him depart till he had laid the founda- 
tions of a future church, and their priest, crowned as 
he was, had been consecrated with the sign of Christ.] 
********* 

He was now sixty-three years old. He saw about 
him a great monastery, a multitude of brethren, and 
crowds who came to be healed of diseases and unclean 
spirits, filling the solitude around ; but he wept daily, 
and remembered with incredible regret his ancient 
life. "I have returned to the world," he said, "and 
received my reward in this life. All Palestine and the 
neighboring provinces think me to be worth some- 
what ; while 1 possess a farm and household goods, 
under the pretext of the brethren's advantage." On 
which the brethren, and especially Hesychius, who 
bore him a wondrous love, watched him narrowly. 

When he had lived thus sadly for two years 
Aristaeneta, the Prefect's wife, came to him, wish. 
ing him to go with her to Antony. " I would go," 
he said, weeping, " if I were not held in the prison of 
this monastery, and if it were of any use. For two 
days since, the whole world was robbed of such a 
father." She believed him, and stopped. And 
Antony's death was confirmed a few days after. 
Others may wonder at the signs and portents which 
he did, at his incredible abstinence, his silence, his 
miracles : I am astonished at nothing so much as 



THE HERMITS. „y 

that he was able to trample under foot that glory and 
honor. 

Bishops and clergy, monks and Christian matrons 
( a great temptation), people of the common sort, 
great men, too, and judges crowded to him, to receive 
from him blessed bread or oil. But he was thinking 
of nothing but the desert, till one day he determined 
to set out, and taking an ass (for he was so shrunk 
with fasting that he could hardly walk ), he tried to go 
his way. The news got wind ; the desolation and 
destruction of Palestine would ensue ; ten thousand 
souls, men and women, tried to stop his way ; but he 
would not hear them. Smiting on the ground with 
his staff, he said, " I will not make my God a liar. I 
cannot bear to see churches ruined, the altars of 
Christ trampled down, the blood of my sons spilt." 
All who heard thought that some secret revelation had 
been made to him : but yet they would not let him 
go. Whereon he would neither eat nor drink, and for 
seven days he persevered fasting, till he had his wish, 
and set out for Beshulia, with forty monks, who could 
march without food till sundown. On the fifth day 
he came to Pelusium, then to the camp Thebatrum 
to see Dracontius ; and then to Babylon to see Philo- 
These two were bishops and confessors exiled by 
Constantius, who favored the Arian heresy. Then 
he came to Aphroditon, where he met Barsanes the 
deacon, who used to carry water to Antony on 
dromedaries, and heard from him that the anniversary 
of Antony's death was near, and would be celebrated 
by a vigil at his tomb. Then through a vast and 



I iS THE HERMITS. 

horrible wilderness, he went for three days to a very 
high mountain, and found there two monks, Isaac and 
Pelusianus, of whom Isaac had been Antony's inter- 
preter. 

A high and rocky hill it was, with fountains gushing 
out at its foot. Some of them the sand sucked up : 
some formed a little rill, with palms without number 
on its banks. There you might have seen the old man 
wandering to and fro with Antony's disciples. " Here, 
they said, " he used to sing, here to pray, here to 
work, here to sit when tired. These vines, these 
shrubs, he planted himself; that plot he laid out with 
his own hands. This pond to water the garden he 
made with heavy toil ; that hoe he kept for many 
years." Hilarion lay on his bed, and kissed the couch, 
as if it were still warm. Antony's cell was only 
large enough to let a man lie down in it ; and on 
the mountain top, reached by a difficult and winding 
stair, were two other cells of the same size, cut in 
the stony rock, to which he used to retire from the 
visitors and disciples, when they came to the garden. 
" You see," said Isaac, " this orchard, with shrubs 
and vegetables. Three years since a troop of wild 
asses laid it waste. He bade one of their leaders stop ; 
and beat it with his staff. ' Why do you eat,' he asked 
it, I what you did not sow ? ' And after that the asses, 
though they came to drink the waters, never touched 
his plants." 

Then Hilarion asked them to show him Antony's 
grave. They led him apaat ; but whether they, 
showed it to him, no man knows. They hid it, they 



THE HERMITS. 



ng 



said, by Antony's command, lest one Pergamius, who 
was the richest man of those parts, should take the 
corpse to his villa, and build a chapel over it. 

Then he went back to Aphroditon, and with only 
two brothers, dwelt in the desert, in such abstinence 
and silence that (so he said) he then first began to 
serve Christ. Now it was then three years since the 
heaven had been shut, and the earth dried up : so 
that they said commonly, the very elements mourned 
the death of Antony. But Hilarion's fame spread to 
them ; and a great multitude, brown and shrunken 
with famine, cried to him for rain, as to the blessed 
Antony's successor. He saw them, and grieved over 
them ; and lifting up his hand to heaven, obtained 
fain at once. But the thirsty and sandy land, as soon 
as it was watered by showers, sent forth such a crowd 
of serpents and venomous animals that people without 
number were stung, and would have died, had they 
not run together to Hilarion. With oil blessed by 
him, the husbandmen and shepherds touched their 
wounds, and all were surely healed. 

But when he saw that he was marvellously hon- 
ored, he went to Alexandria, meaning to cross the 
desert to the further Oasis. And because since he 
was a monk he had never stayed in a city, he turned 
aside to some brethren known to him in the Bru- 
cheion,* not far from Alexandria. They received him 

* The Brucheion, with its palaces and museum, the residence of 
the kings and philosophers of Egypt, had been destroyed in the days 
of Claudius and Valerian, during the senseless civil wars which devas- 
tated Alexandria for twelve years ; and monks had probably taken up 



120 THE HERMITS. 

with joy : but, when night came on, they suddenly 
heard him bid his disciples saddle the ass. In vain 
they entreated, threw themselves across the threshold. 
His only answer was, that he was hastening away, 
lest he should bring them into trouble ; they would 
soon know that he had not departed without good rea- 
son. The next day, men of Gaza came with the Pre- 
fect's lictors, burst into the monastery, and when they 
found him not, " Is it not true," they said, "what we 
heard? He is a sorcerer, and knows the future." 
For the citizens of Gaza, after Hilarion was gone, and 
Julian had succeeded to the empire, had destroyed his 
monastery, and begged from the Emperor the death 
of Hilarion and Hesychius. So letters had been sent 
forth, to seek them throughout the world. 

So Hilarion went by the pathless wilderness into 
the Oasis; * and after a year, more or less — because 
his fame had gone before him even there, and he could 
not lie hid in the East — he was minded to sail away 
to lonely islands, that the sea at least might hide what 
the land would not. 

But just then Hadrian, his disciple, came from 
Palestine, telling him that Julian was slain, and 
that a Christian emperor was reigning ; so that 
he ought to return to the relics of his monastery. 
But he abhorred the thought ; and, hiring a camel, 
went over the vast desert to Paraetonia, a sea town of 

their abode in the ruins. It was in this quarter, at the beginning of 
the next century, that Hypatia was murdered by the monks. 

* Probably the Northern, or Lesser Oasis, Ouah el Baharieh about 
eighty mile* west of the Nile. 



THE HERMITS. 121 

Libya. Then the wretched Hadrian, wishing to go 
back to Palestine and get himself glory under his 
master's name, packed up all that the brethren had 
sent by him to his master, and went secretly away 
But — as a terror to those who despise their masters — 
he shortly after died of jaundice. 

Then, with Zananas alone, Hilarion went on board 
ship to sail for Sicily. And when, almost in the 
middle of Adria,* he was going to sell the Gospels 
which he had written out with his own hand when 
young, to pay his fare withal, then the captain's son 
was possessed with a devil, and cried out, " Hil-arion, 
servant of God, why can we not be safe from thee 
even at sea ? Give me a little respite till I come to 
the shore, lest, if I be cast out here, I fall headlong 
into the abyss." Then said he, " If my God lets 
thee stay, stay. But if he cast thee out, why dost 
thou lay the blame on me, a sinner and a beggar ? " 
Then he made the captain and the crew promise not 
to betray him : and the devil was cast out. But the 
captain would take no fare when he saw that they 
had nought but those Gospels, and the clothes on 
their backs. And so Hilarion came to Pachynum, 
a cape of Sicily,")" and fled twenty miles inland into 
a deserted farm ; and there every day gathered a 
bundle of firewood, and put it on Zananas' s back, 

* Jerome (who sailed that sea several times) uses the word here, 
as it is used in Acts xxvii. 27, for the sea about Malta, " driven up and 
down in Adria." 

t The southern point of Sicily, now Cape Passaro. 



122 THE HERMITS. 

who took it to the town, and bought a little bread 
thereby. 

But it happened, according to that which is writ- 
ten, "A city set on a hill cannot be hid," one Scutar- 
lus was tormented by a devil in the Basilica of St. 
Peter at Rome ; and the unclean spirit cried out in 
him, " A few days since Hilarion, the servant of 
Christ, landed in Sicily, and no man knows him, and 
he thinks himself hid. I will go and betray him." 
And forthwith he took ship with his slaves, and came 
to Pachynum, and, by the leading of the devil, threw 
himself down before the old man's hut, and was 
cured. 

The frequency of his signs in Sicily drew to him 
sick people and religious men in multitudes ; and one 
of the chief men was cured of dropsy the same day 
that he came, and offered Hilarion boundless gifts : 
but he obeyed the Saviour's saying, " Freely ye have 
received ; freely give." 

While this was happening in Sicily, Hesychius, 
his disciple, was seeking the old man through the 
world, searching the shores, penetrating the desert, 
and only certain that, wherever he was, he could not 
long be hid. So, after three years were past, he 
heard at Methone* from a Jew, who was selling old 
clothes, that a prophet of the Christians had appeared 
in Sicily, working such wonders that he was thought 
to be one of the old saints. But he could give 
no description of him, having only heard common 

* In the Morea, near the modern Navarino. 



THE HERMITS. 



123 



report. He sailed for Pachynum, and there, in a 
cottage on the shore, heard of Hilarion's fame — that 
which most surprised all being that, after so many 
signs and miracles, he had not accepted even a bit 
of bread from any man. 

So, " not to make the story too long," as says 
St. Jerome, Hesychius fell at his master's knees, and 
watered his feet with tears, till at last he raised him 
up. But two or three days after he heard from 
Zananas, how the old man could dwell no longer in 
these regions, but was minded to go to some barba- 
rous nation, where both his name and his speech 
should be unknown. So he took him to Epidaurus,* 
a city of Dalmatia , where he lay a few days in a. little 
farm, and yet could not be hid ; for a dragon of 
wondrous size — one of those which, in the country 
speech, they call boas, because they are so huge that 
they can swallow an ox — laid waste the province, 
and devoured not only herd and flocks, but husband- 
men and shepherds, which he drew to him by the 
force of his breath. f Hilarion commanded a pile of 
wood to be prepared, and having prayed to Christ, 

* At the mouth of the bay of Cattaro. 

t This story — whatever belief we may give to its details — is one of 
many which make it tolerably certain that a large snake (Python) still 
lingered in Eastern Europe. Huge tame snakes were kept as sacred by 
the Macedonian women ; and one of them (according to Lucian) Pere- 
grinus Proteus, the Cagliostro of his time, fitted with a linen mask, and 
made it personate the god ^Esculapius. In the " Historia Lausiaca," 
cap. lii. is an account by an eye-witness of a large snake in the Thebaid 
whose track was " as if a beam had been dragged along the sand." It 
terrifies the Syrian monks : but the Egyptian monk sets to work to kill 
it, saying that he had seen much larger — even up to fifteen cubits. 



124 TTrK HERMITS* 

and called the beast forth, commanded him to ascend 
the pile, and having put fire under, burnt him before 
all the people. Then fretting over what he should 
do, or whither he should turn, he went alone over 
the world in imagination, and mourned that, when 
his tongue was silent, his miracles still spoke. 

In those days, at the earthquake over the whole 
world, which befell after Julian's death, the sea broke its 
bounds ; and, as if God was threatening another flood 
or all was returning to the primaeval chaos, ships 
were carried up steep rocks, and hung there. But 
when the Epidauritans saw roaring waves and moun- 
tains of water borne towards the shore, fearing lest 
the town should be utterly overthrown, they went out 
to the old man, and, as if they were leading him out 
to battle, stationed him on the shore. And when 
he had marked three signs of the Cross upon the 
sand, and stretched out his hands against the waves, 
it is past belief to what a height the sea swelled, and 
stood up before him, and then, raging long as if 
indignant at the barrier, fell back little by little into 
itself. 

All Epidaurus, and all that region, talk of this to 
this day ; and mothers teach it their children, that 
they may hand it down to posterity. Truly, that 
which was said to the Apostles, " If ye believe, 
ye shall say to this mountain, Be removed, and cast 
into the sea; and it shall be done," can be fulfilled 
even to the letter, if we have the faith of the 
Apostle, and such as the Lord commanded them to 
have. For which is more strange, that a mountain 



THE HERMITS. 12 § 

should descend into the sea ; or that mountains of 
water should stiffen of a sudden, and, firm as a 
rock only at an old man's feet, should flow softly 
everywhere else ? All the city wondered ; and the 
greatness of the sign was bruited abroad even at 
Salo. 

When the old man discovered that, he fled secretly 
by night in a little boat, and finding a merchantman 
after two days, sailed for Cyprus. Between Maleae 
and Cythera* they were met by pirates, who had left 
their vessels under the shore, and came up in two 
large galleys, worked not with sails, but oars. As 
the rowers swept the billows, all on board began to 
tremble, weep, run about, get handspikes ready, and, 
as if one messenger was not enough, vie with each 
other in telling the old man that pirates were at hand. 
He looked out at them and smiled. Then turning to 
his disciples, " O ye of little faith," he said ; " where- 
fore do ye doubt ? Are these more in number than 
Pharaoh's army ? Yet they were all drowned when 
God so willed." While he spoke, the hostile keels, 
with foaming beaks, were but a short stone's throw 
off. He then stood on the ship's bow, and stretching 
out his hands against them, " Let it be enough," he 
said, " to have come thus far." 

O wondrous faith ! The boats instantly sprang 
back, and made stern-way, although the oars impelled 
them in an opposite direction. The pirates were 
astonished having no wish to return back-foremost> 

* Now Capo St. Angel and the island of Cerigo, at the southern point 
of Greece. 



126 THE HERMITS. 

and struggled with all their might to reach the ship ; 
but were carried to the shore again, much faster than 
they had come. 

I pass over the rest, lest by telling every story I 
make the volume too long. This only I will say, 
that, while he sailed prosperously through the Cy- 
clades, he heard the voices of foul spirits, calling here 
and there out of the towns and villages, and running 
together on the beaches. So he came to Paphos, the 
city of Cyprus, famous once in poets' songs, which 
now, shaken down by frequent earthquakes, only 
shows what it has been of yore by the foundations of 
its ruins. There he dwelt meanly near the second 
milestone out of the city, rejoicing much that he was 
living quietly for a few days.. But not three weeks 
were past, ere throughout the whole island whosoever 
had unclean spirits began to cry that Hilarion the 
servant of Christ was come, and that they must 
hasten to him. Salonica, Curium, Lapetha, and the 
other towns, all cried this together, m »st saying that 
they knew Hilarion, and that he was truly a servant of 
God ; but where he was they knew not. Within a 
month, nearly 200 men and women were gathered to- 
gether to him. Whom when he saw, grieving that they 
would not suffer him to rest, raging, as it were to 
revenge himself, he scourged them with such an 
instancy of prayer, that some were cured at once, 
some after two or three days, and all within a week. 

So staying there two years, and always meditating 
flight, he sent Hesychius to Palestine, to salute the 
brethren, visit the ashes of the monastery, and return 



THE HERMITS. 127 

in the spring. When he returned, and Hilarion was 
longing to sail again to Egypt, — that is, to the cattle 
pastures,* because there is no Christian there, but 
only a fierce and barbarous folk, — he persuaded the 
old man rather to withdraw into some more secret 
spot in the island itself. And looking round it long till 
he had examined it all over, he led him away twelve 
miles from the sea, among lonely and rough mountains, 
where they could hardly climb up, creeping on hands 
and knees. When they were within, they beheld a spot 
terrible and very lonely, surrounded with trees, which 
had, too, waters falling from the brow of a cliff, and a 
most pleasant little garden, and many fruit-trees — the 
fruit of which, however, Hilarion never ate — and near 
it the ruin of a very ancient temple,f out of which (so 
he and his disciples averred) the voices of so many 
daemons resounded day and night, that you would 
have fancied an army there. With which he was ex- 
ceedingly delighted, because he had his foes close to 
him ; and dwelt therein five years ; and (while Hesy- 
chius often visited him) he was much cheered up in 
this last period of his life, because owing to the rough- 
ness and difficulty of the ground, and the multitude 
of ghosts (as was commonly reported), few, or none, 
ever dare climb up to him. 

But one day, going out of the little garden, he saw 
a man paralytic in all his limbs, lying before the gate ; 
and having asked Hesychius who he was, and how he 
had come, he was told that the man was the steward 

* See p. 56. 

\ Probably dedicated to tiie Paphiau. Venus. 



128 THE HERMITS. 

of a small estate, and that to him the garden, in which 
they were, belonged. Hilarion, weeping over him, 
and stretching a hand to him as he lay, said, " I say 
to thee, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, arise 
and walk." Wonderful was the rapidity of the effect. 
The words were yet in his mouth, when the limbs, 
strengthened, raised the man upon his feet. As soon 
as it was known, the needs of many conquered the 
difficulty of the ground, and the want of a path, while 
all in the neighborhood watched nothing so carefully, 
as that he should not by some plan slip away from 
them. For the report had been spread about him, 
that he could not remain long in the same place ; 
which nevertheless he did not do from any caprice, or 
childishness, but to escape honor and importunity ; 
for he always longed after silence, and an ignoble 
life. 

So, in the eightieth year of his age, while Hesychius 
was absent, he wrote a short letter, by way of testa- 
ment, with his own hand; leaving to Hesychius all his 
riches ; namely, his Gospel-book, and a sackcloth 
shirt, hood, and mantle. For his servant had died a 
few days before. Many religious men came to him 
from Paphos while he was sick, especially because 
they had heard that he had said that now he was 
going to migrate to the Lord, and be freed from the 
chains of the body. There came also Constantia, a 
high-born lady, whose son-in-law and daughter he had 
delivered from death by anointing them with oil. And 
he made them all swear, that he should not be kept 
an hour after his death, but covered up with earth in 






THE HERMITS. 



129 



that same garden, clothed, as he was, in his hair cloth 
shirt, hood, and rustic cloak. And now little heat 
was left in his body, and nothing of a living man was 
left, except his reason : and yet, with open eyes, he 
went on saying, "Go forth, what fearest thou? Go 
forth, my soul, what doubtest thou ? Nigh seventy 
years hast thou served Christ, and dost thou fear 
death ? " With these words he breathed out his soul. 
They covered him forthwith in earth, and told them 
in the city that he was buried, before it was known 
that he was dead. 

The holy man Hesychius heard this in Palestine ; 
reached Cyprus ; and pretending, in order to prevent 
suspicion on the part of the neighbors, who guarded 
the spot diligently, that he wished to dwell in that 
same garden, he, after some ten months, with ex- 
treme peril of his life stole the corpse. He carried it 
to Maiuma, followed by whole crowds of monks and 
townsfolk, and placed it in the old monastery, with 
the shirt, hood, and cloak unhurt ; the whole body 
perfect, as if alive, and fragrant with such strong- 
odor, that it seemed to have had unguents poured 
over it. 

I think that I ought not, in the end of my book, to 
be silent about the devotion of. that most holy woman 
Constantia, who, hearing that the body of Hilarion, 
the servant of God, was gone to Palestine, straightway 
gave up the ghost, proving by her very death her 
true love for the servant of God. For she was wont 
to pass nights in watching his sepulchre, and to con- 
verse with him as if he were present, in order to assist 
9 



THE HERMITS. 

her prayers. You may see, even to this day, a won- 
derful contention between the folk of Palestine and 
the Cypriots, the former saying that they have the 
body, the latter that they have the soul, of Hilarion. 
And yet, in both places, great signs are worked 
daily ; but most in the little garden in Cyprus ; per- 
haps because he loved that place the best. 

Such is the story of Hilarion. His name still lingers 
in " the place he loved the best.'' " To this day," I 
quote this fact from M. de Montalembert's work, "the 
Cypriots, confounding in their memories legends of 
good and of evil, the victories of the soul and the 
Triumph of the senses, give to the ruins of one of those 
strong castles built by the Lusignans, which command 
their isle, the double name of the Castle of St. Hilar- 
ion, and the Castle of the God of Love." But how 
intense must have been the longing for solitude 
which drove the old man to travel on foot from Syria 
to the Egyptian desert, across the pathless westward 
waste, even to the Oasis and the utmost limits of 
the Egyptian province ; and then to Sicily, to the 
Adriatic, and at last to a distant isle of Greece. And 
shall we blame him for that longing ? He seems to have 
done his duty earnestly, according to his own light, 
towards his fellow-creatures whenever he met them. 
But he seems to have found that noise and crowd, dis- 
play and honor, were not altogether wholesome for 
his own soul ; and in order that he might be a better 
man he desired again and again to flee, that he might 
collect himself, and be alone with Nature and with 



THE HERMITS. 



131 



God. We, here in England, like the old Greeks and 
Romans, dwellers in the busy mart of civilized life, 
have got to regard mere bustle as so intenral an 
element of human life, that we consider a love of 
solitude a mark of eccentricity, and, if we meet any 
one who loves to be alone, are afraid that he must 
needs be going mad : and that with too great solitude 
comes the danger of too great self-consciousness, and 
even at last of insanity, none can doubt. But still we 
must remember, on the other hand, that without soli- 
tude, without contemplation, without habitual collec- 
tion and recollection of our own selves from time to 
time, no great purpose is carried out, and no great 
work can be done ; and that it is the bustle and 
hurry of our modern life which causes shallow thought, 
unstable purpose, and wasted energy, in too many who 
would be better and wiser, stronger and happier, if 
they would devote more time to silence and medita- 
tion ; if they would commune with their own heart in 
their chamber, and be still. Even in art and in me- 
chanical science, those who have done great work upon 
the earth have been men given to solitary meditation. 
When Brindley, the engineer, it is said, had a difficult 
problem to solve, he used to go to bed, and stay 
there till he had worked it out. Turner, the greatest 
nature-painter of this or any other age, spent hours 
upon hours in mere contemplation of Nature, without 
using his pencil at all. It is said of him that he was 
seen to spend a whole day, sitting upon a rock, and 
throwing pebbles into a lake ; and when at evening 
his fellow painters showed their day's sketches, and 



15- 



7V/Z-; HERMITS. 



rallied thim upon having done nothing, he answered 
them, " I have done this at least : I have learnt how a 
lake looks when pebbles are thrown into it." And if 
this silent labor, this steadfast thought are required 
even for outward art and sciences, how much more 
for the highest of all arts, the deepest of all sciences, 
that which involves the questions — who are we ? and 
where are we ? who is God ? and what are we to God, 
and He to us ? — namely, the science of being good, 
which deals not with time merely, but with eternity. 
No retirement, no loneliness, no period of earnest and 
solemn meditation, can be misspent which helps us 
towards that goal. 

And therefore it was that Hi'arion longed to be 
alone ; alone wtih God ; and with Nature, which spoke 
to him of God. For these old hermits, though they 
neither talked nor wrote concerning scenery, nor 
painted pictures of it as we do now, had many of 
them a clear and intense instinct of the beauty and 
the meaning of outward Nature ; as Antony surely 
had when he said that the world around was his book 
wherein he read the mysteries of God. Hilarion 
seems, from this story, to have had a special craving 
for the sea. Perhaps his early sojourn on the low 
sandhills of the Philistine shore, as he watched the 
tidcless Mediterranean, rolling and breaking forever 
upon the same beach, had taught him to say with the 
old prophet as he thought of the wicked and still half 
idolatrous cities of the Philistine shore " Fear ye 
not ? saith the Lord ; Will ye not tremble at my 
presence who have placed the sand for the bound of 



THE HERMITS. ^3 

the sea, for a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it ? 
And though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet 
can they not prevail ; though they roar, yet can they 
not pass over. But this people has a revolted and 
rebellious heart, they are revolted and gone." Per- 
haps again, looking down from the sunny Sicilian 
cliffs of Taormino, or through the pine-clad gulfs and 
gullies of the Cypriote hills upon the blue Mediter- 
ranean below, — 

" And watching from his mountain wall 
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawl," 

he had enjoyed and profited by all those images which 
that sight has called up in so many minds before and 
since. To him it may be, as to the Psalmist, the 
storm-swept sea pictured the instability of mortal 
things, while secure upon his cliff he said with the 
Psalmist, " The Lord hath set my feet upon a rock, 
and ordered my goings ; " and again, " The wicked 
are like a troubled sea, casting up mire and dirt." 
C ften, again, looking upon that far horizon, must his 
soul have been drawn, as many a soul has been drawn 
since, to it, and beyond it, as it were into a region of 
boundless freedom and perfect peace, while he said 
again with David, " Oh that I had wings like a dove ; 
then would I flee away and be at rest ! " and so have 
found, in the contemplation of the wide ocean, a sub- 
stitute at least for the contemplation of those Eastern 
deserts which seemed the proper home for the solitary 
and meditative philosopher. 

For indeed in no northern country can such situa- 
tions be found for the monastic cell as can be found 



34 



THE HE KM ITS. 



in those great deserts which stretch from Syria to 
Arabia, from Arabia to Egypt, from Egypt to Africa 
properly so called. Here and there a northern hermit 
found, as Hilarion found, a fitting home by the sea- 
side, on some lonely island or storm-beat rock, like 
St. Cuthbert, off the coast of Northumberland; like 
St. Rule, on his rock at St. Andrew's ; and St Columba, 
with its ever-venerable company of missionaries, 
on Iona. But inland, the fens and the forests were 
foul, unwholesome, depressing, the haunts of fever, 
ague, delirium, as St. Guthlac found at Crowland, and 
St. Godric at Finkhale.* The vast pine-woods which 
clothe the Alpine slopes, the vast forests of beech 
and oak which then spread over France and Ger- 
many, gave in time shelter to many a holy hermit. 
But their gloom, their unwholesomeness, and the 
severity of the climate, produced in them, as in most 
northern ascetics, a temper of mind more melan- 
choly, and often more fierce ; more given to pas- 
sionate devotion, but more given also to dark super- 
stition and cruel self-torture, than the genial climate 
of the desert produced in old monks of the East. 
When we think of St. Antony upon his mountain, 
we must not picture to ourselves, unless we, too> 
have been in the East, such a mountain as we 
have ever seen. We must not think of a brown 
northern moorland, sad, savage, storm-swept, snow- 
buried, save in the brief and uncertain summer 
months. We must not picture to ourselves an Alp, 

* The lives of these two hermits and that of St. Cuthbert will be 
given in a future number. 



THE HERMITS. 



l 3S 



with thundering avalanches, roaring torrents, fierce 
alternations of heat and cold, uninhabitable by mortal 
man, save during that short period of the year when 
the maidens in the sennhutt watch the cattle upon 
the upland pastures. We must picture to ourselves 
mountains blazing day after day, month after month, 
beneath the glorious sun and cloudless sky, in an air 
so invigorating that the Arabs can still support life 
there upon a few dates each day ; and where, as has 
been said, — " Man needs there hardly to eat, drink, 
or sleep, for the act of breathing will give life enough ; " 
an atmosphere of such telescopic clearness as to explain 
many of the strange stories which have been lately told 
of Antony's seemingly preternatural powers of vision ; 
a coloring, which, when painters dare to put it on 
canvas, seems to our eyes, accustomed to the quiet ■ 
grays and greens of England, exaggerated and im- 
possible — distant mountains, pink and lilac, quivering 
in pale blue haze — vast sheets of yellow sand, across 
which the lonely rock or a troop of wild asses or 
gazelles throw intense blue-black shadows — rocks and 
cliffs not shrouded, as here, in soil, much less in grass 
and trees, or spotted with lichens and stained with 
veins ; but keeping each stone its natural color, as it 
wastes — if, indeed, it wastes at all — under the action 
of the all but rainless air, which has left the paintings 
on the old Egyptian temples fresh and clear for 
thousands of years ; rocks, orange and purple, black, 
white, and yellow ; and again and again beyond them* 

* Sihor, the black river, was the ancient name of the Nile, derived 
from the dark hqe of its waters, 



^ 



THE HERMITS. 



glimpses, it may be, of the black Nile, and of the 
long green garden of Egypt and of the dark blue sea. 
The eastward view from Antony's old home must be 
one of the most glorious in the world, save for its 
want of verdure and of life. For Antony, as he looked 
across the blue waters of the Gulf of Akaba, across 
which, far above, the Irsaelites had passed in old 
times, could see the sacred goal of their pilgrimage, 
the red granite peaks of Sinai, flaming against the 
blue sky with that intensity of hue which is scarcely 
exaggerated, it is said, by the bright scarlet color in 
which Sinai is always painted in mediaeval illumina- 
tions. 

But the gorgeousness of coloring, though it may 
interest us, was not, of course, what produced the 
deepest effect upon the minds of those old hermits. 
They enjoyed Nature, not so much for her beauty, 
as for her perfect peace. Day by day the rocks re 
mained the same. Silently out of the Eastern desert, 
day by day, the rising sun threw aloft those arrows of 
light, which the old Greeks had named " the rosy 
fingers of the dawn." Silently he passed in full blaze 
almost above their heads throughout the day ; and 
silently he dipped behind the western desert in a glory 
of crimson and orange, green and purple ; and without 
an interval of twilight, in a moment, all the land was 
dark, and the stars leapt out, not twinkling as in 
our damper climate here, but hanging like balls of 
white fire in that purple southern night, through 
which one seems to look beyond the stars into the 
infinite abyss, towards the throne of God him- 



THE HERMITS. 



*37 



self- Day after day, night after night, that gorgeous 
pageant passed over the poor hermit's head without a 
sound; and though sun and moon and planet might 
change their places as the year rolled round, the earth 
beneath his feet seemed not to change. Every morn- 
ing he saw the same peaks in the distance, the same 
rocks, the same sand-heaps around his feet. He 
never heard the tinkle of a running stream. For 
weeks together he did not even hear the rushing of 
the wind. Now and then a storm might sweep up 
the pass, whirling the sand in eddies, and making the 
desert for a while literally a " howling wilderness ; " and 
when that was passed all was as it had been before. 
The very change of seasons must have been little 
marked to him, save by the motions, if he cared to 
watch them, of the stars above ; for vegetation there 
was none to mark the difference between summer and 
winter. In spring of course the solitary date-palm 
here and there threw out its spathe of young green 
leaves, to add to the number of those which, gray or 
brown, hung drooping down the stem, withering but 
not decaying for many a year in that dry atmosphere ; 
or perhaps the accacia bushes looked somewhat gayer 
for a few weeks, and the Retama broom, from which 
as well as from the palm leaves he plaited his baskets, 
threw out its yearly crop of twigs ; but any greenness 
there might be in the vegetation of spring, turned 
gray in a few weeks beneath that burning sun ; and 
the rest of the year was one perpetual summer of 
dust and glare and rest. Amid such scenes the 
mind had full time for thought. Nature and man 



i 3 8 THE HERMITS. 

alike left it in peace ; while the labor required for 
sustaining life (and the monk wished for nothing 
more than to sustain mere life) was very light. 
Wherever water could be found, the hot sun and the 
fertile soil would repay by abundant crops, perhaps 
twice in the year, the toil of scratching the ground 
and putting in the seed. Moreover, the labor of the 
husbandman, so far from being adverse to the contem- 
plative life, is of all occupations, it may be, that which 
promotes most quiet and wholesome meditation in the 
mind which cares to meditate. The life of the desert, 
when once the passions of youth were conquered, 
seems to have been not only a happy, but a healthy 
one. And when we remember that the monk, clothed 
from head to foot in woollen, and sheltered, too, by 
his sheepskin cape, escaped those violent changes of 
temperature which produce in the East so many fatal 
diseases, and which were so deadly to the linen-clothed 
inhabitants of the green lowlands of the Nile, we 
need not be surprised when we read of the vast lon- 
gevity of many of the old abbots ; and of their death, 
not by disease, but by gentle, and as it were whole- 
some natural decay. 

But if their life was easy, it was surely not ill- 
spent. If having few wants, and those soon supplied, 
they found too much time for the luxury of quiet 
thought, those need not blame them, who having 
many wants, and those also easily supplied, are wont 
to spend their superfluous leisure in any luxury save 
that of thought, above all save that of thought con- 
cerning God. For it was upon God that these men, 



77/ E HEKM7TS. ^g 

whatever their defects or ignorances may have been' 
had set their minds. That man- was sent into the world 
to know and to love, to obey and thereby to glorify, 
the Maker of his being, was the cardinal point of their 
creed, as it has been of every creed which ever exer- 
cised any beneficial influence on the minds of men. 
Dean Milman in his " History of Christianity," vol. iii. 
page 294, has, while justly severe upon the failings and 
mistakes of the Eastern monks, pointed out with equal 
justice that the great desire of knowing God was the 
prime motive in the mind of all their best men : — 

" In some regions of the East, the sultry and 
oppressive heat, the general relaxation of the physical 
system, dispose constitutions of a certain tempera- 
ment to a dreamy inertness. The indolence and 
prostration of the body produce a kind of activity in 
the mind, if that may properly be called activity 
which is merely giving loose to the imagination and 
the emotions as they follow out the wild train of 
incoherent thought, or are agitated by impulses of 
spontaneous and ungoverned feeling. Ascetic Chris- 
tianity ministered new aliment to this common pro- 
pensity. It gave an object, both vague and determinate 
enough to stimulate, yet never to satisfy or exhaust. 
The regularity of stated hours of prayer, and of a 
kind of idle industry, weaving mats or plaiting baskets, 
alternated with periods of morbid reflection on the 
moral state of the soul, and of mystic communion 
with the Deity. It cannot indeed be wondered that 
this new revelation, as it were, of the Deity, this 
profound and rational certainty of his existence, this 



t 4 o THE HERMITS. 

infelt consciousness of his perpetual presence, these 
as yet unknown impressions of his infinity, his 
power, and his love, should give a higher character 
to this eremitical enthusiasm, and attract men of 
loftier and more vigorous minds within its sphere. It 
was not merely the pusillanimous dread of encounter- 
ing the trials of life which urged the humbler spirits 
to seek a safe retirement ; or the natural love of 
peace, and the weariness and satiety of life, which 
commended this seclusion to those who were too 
gentle to mingle in, or who were exhausted with, the 
unprofitable turmoil of the world ; nor was it always 
the anxiety to mortify the rebellious and refractory 
body with more advantage. The one absorbing idea 
of the Majesty of the Godhead almost seemed to 
swallow up all other considerations. The transcendent 
nature of the Triune Deity, the relation of the different 
persons of the Godhead to each other, seemed the 
one worthy object of men's contemplative faculties." 
And surely the contemplation of the Godhead is 
no unworthy occupation of the immortal soul of 
any human being. But it would be unjust to these 
hermits did we fancy that their religion consisted 
merely even in this ; much less that it consisted 
merely in dreams and visions, or in mere stated hours 
of prayer. That all did not fulfil the ideal of their 
profession is to be expected, and is frankly confessed 
by the writers of the Lives of the Fathers ; that there 
were serious faults, even great crimes, among them is 
not denied. Those who wrote concerning them were 
so sure that they were on the whole good mer 



THE HERMITS. I41 

they were not at all afraid of saying that some of 
them were bad, — not afraid, even, of recording, though 
only in dark hints, the reason why the Arab tribes 
around once rose and laid waste six churches with 
their monasteries in the neighborhood of Scetis. 
St. Jerome in like manner does not hesitate to pour 
out bitter complaints against many of the monks in 
the neighborhood of Bethlehem. It is notorious, too, 
that many became monks merely to escape slavery, 
hunger, or conscription into the army. Unruly and 
fanatical spirits, too, grew fond of wandering. Bands 
of monks on the great roads and public places of the 
empire, Massalians or Gyrovagi, as they were called, 
wandered from province to province, and cell to cell, 
living on the alms which they extorted from the 
pious, and making up too often for protracted fasts 
by outbursts of gluttony and drunkenness. And 
doubtless the average monk, even when well-con- 
ducted himself and in a well-conducted monastery, 
was, like average men of every creed, rank, or occupa- 
tion, a very commonplace person, acting from very 
mixed and often very questionable motives ; and 
valuing his shaven crown and his sheepskin cloak, his 
regular hours of prayer and his implicit obedience to 
his abbot, more highly than he valued the fear and 
the love of God. 

It is so in every creed. With some, even now, the 
strict observance of the Sabbath ; with others out- 
ward reverence at the Holy Communion ; with 
others, the frequent hearing of sermons which suit 
their own views ; with others, continual reading of 



142 THE HERMITS. 

pious books (on the lessons of which they do not act), 
covers, instead of charity, a multitude of sins. But 
the saint, abbot, or father among these hermits was 
essentially the man who was not a commonplace 
person : who was more than an ascetic, and more than 
a formalist ; who could pierce beyond the letter to the 
spirit, and see, beyond all forms of doctrine or modes 
of life, that virtue was the one thing needful. 

The Historia Lausiaca and the Pratum Spirituale 
have many a story and many a saying as weighty, 
beautiful, and instructive now as they were fifteen 
hundred years ago ; stories which show that graces 
and virtues such as the world had never seen before, 
save in the persecuted and hall-unknown Christians 
of the first three centuries, were cultivated to noble 
fruitfulness by the monks of the East. For their 
humility, obedience, and reverence for their superiors 
it is not wise to praise them just now : for those are 
qualities which are not at present considered virtues, 
but rather (save by the soldier) somewhat abject vices; 
and indeed they often carried them, as they did their 
abstinence, to an extravagant pitch. But it must be 
remembered, in fairness, that if they obeyed their sup- 
posed superiors, they had first chosen their superiors 
themselves ; that as the becoming a monk at all was 
an assertion of self-will and independence, whether 
for good or evil, so their reverence for their abbots 
was a voluntary loyalty to one who they fancied had 
a right to rule them, because he was wiser and better 
than they : a feeling which some have found not de- 
grading, but ennobling ; and the parent, not of servility 



THE HERMITS. 143 

but of true freedom. And as for the obsolete virtue 
of humility, that still remains true which a voice said 
to Antony, when he saw the snares which were spread 
over the whole earth, and asked, sighing, " Who can 
pass safely over these ? " and the voice answered 
" Humility alone." 

For the rest, if the Sermon on the Mount mean 
anything, as a practical rule of life for Christian men, 
then these monks were surely justified in trying to 
obey it, for to obey it they surely tried. 

The Words of the Elders, to which I have already 
alluded, and the Lausiaca of Palladius likewise, are 
full of precious scraps of moral wisdom, sayings, and 
anecdotes, full of nobleness, purity, pathos, insight 
into character, and often instinct with a quiet humor, 
which seems to have been, in the Old World, peculiar 
to the Egyptians, as it is, in the New, almost peculiar 
to the old-fashioned God-fearing Scotsman. 

Take these examples, chosen almost at random. 

Serapion the Sindonite was so called because he 
wore nothing but a sindon, or linen shirt. Though he 
could not read, he could say all the Scriptures by 
heart. He could not (says Palladius) sit quiet in his 
cell, but wandered over the world in utter poverty, so 
that he "attained to perfect impassibility, for with 
that nature he was born ; for there are differences of 
natures, not of substances." 

So says Palladius, and goes on to tell how Serapion 
sold himself to certain play-actors for twenty gold 
pieces, and labored for them as a slave till he had won 
'them to Christ, and made them renounce the theatre; 



144 



THE HERMITS. 



after which he made his converts give the money to 
the^>oor, and went his way. 

On one of his journeys he came to Athens, and, 
having neither money nor goods, starved there for 
three days. But on the fourth he went up, seemingly 
to the Areopagus, and cried, " Men of Athens, help ! " 
And when the crowd questioned him, he told them 
that he had, since he left Egypt, fallen into the hands 
of three usurers, two of whom he had satisfied, but 
the third would not leave him. 

On being promised assistance, he told them that 
his three usurers were avarice, sensuality, and hunger. 
Of the two first he was rid, having neither money nor 
passions : but, as he had eaten nothing for three days, 
the third was beginning to be troublesome, and de- 
manded its usual debt, without paying which he could 
not well live ; whereon certain philosophers, seemly 
amused by his apologue, gave him a gold coin. He 
went to a baker's shop, laid down the coin, took up a 
loaf, and went out of Athens forever. Then the 
philosophers knew that he was endowed with true 
virtue ; and when they had paid the baker the price 
of the loaf, got back their gold. 

When he went into Lacedasmon, he heard that a 
great man there was aManichaean, with all his family, 
though otherwise a good man. To him Serapion sold 
himself as a slave, and within two years converted 
him and his wife, who thenceforth treated him not as 
a slave, but as their own brother. 

After awhile, this " Spiritual adament," as Palladius 
calls him, bought his freedom of them, and sailed for 



THE HERMITS. 



H5 



Rome. At sundown first the sailors, and then the 
passengers, brought out each man his provisions, and 
ate. Serapion sat still. The crew fancied that he was 
sea-sick ; but when he had passed a second, third, and 
fourth day fasting, they asked, " Man, why do you 
not eat ? " " Because I have nothing to eat." They 
thought that some one had stolen his baggage : but 
when they found that the man had absolutely no- 
thing, they began to ask him not only how he would 
keep alive, but how he would pay his fare. He only 
answered, " That he had nothing ; that they might 
cast him out of the ship where they had found him." 

But they answered, " Not for a hundred gold pieces, 
so favorable was the wind," and fed him all the way 
to Rome, where we lose sight of him and his humor. 

To go on with almost chance quotations : — 

Some monks were eating at a festival, and one said 
to the serving man, " I eat nothing cooked ; tell them 
to bring me salt." The serving man began to talk 
loudly : " That brother eats no cooked meat ; bring 
him a little salt." Quoth Abbot Theodore : " It were 
more better for thee, brother, to eat meat in thy cell 
than to hear thyself talked about in the presence of 
thy brethren." 

Again : a brother came to Abbot Silvanus, in Mount 
Sinai, and found the brethren working, and said, " Why 
labor you for the meat which perisheth ? Mary 
chose the good part." The abbot said, " Give him a 
book to read, and put him in an empty cell." About 
the ninth hour the brother looked out, to see if he 
would be called to eat, and at last came to the abbot, 



i 4 6 THE HERMITS. 

and asked, " Do not the brethren eat to-day, abbot ? " 
" Yes." " Then why was not I called ? " Then quoth 
Abbot Silvanus : " Thou art a spiritual man : and 
needest not their food. We are carnal, and must eat, 
because we work : but thou hast chosen the better 
part." Whereat the monk was ashamed. 

As was also John the dwarf, who wanted to be 
"without care like the angels, doing nothing but praise 
God." So he threw away his cloak, left his brother 
the abbot, and went into the desert. But after seven 
days he came back, and knocked at the door. " Who 
is there ?" asked his brother. "John." " Nay, John 
is turned into an angel, and is no more among men." 
So he left him outside all night ; and in the morning 
gave him to understand that if he was a man he must 
work, but that if he was an angel, he had no need to 
live in a cell. 

Consider again the saying of the great Antony, 
when some brethren were praising another in his 
presence. But Antony tried him, and found that he 
could not bear an injury. Then said the old man, 
" Brother, thou art like a house with an ornamented 
porch, while the thieves break into it by the back 
door." 

Or this, of Abbot Isidore, when the devil tempted 
him to despair, and told him that he would be lost 
after all : " If I do go into torment, I shall still find 
you below me there." 

Or this, of Zeno the Syrian, when some Egyptian 
monks came to him and began accusing themselves : 
" The Egyptians hide the virtues which they have, 



THE HERMITS. 



i4 7 



and confess vices which they have not. The Syrians 
and Greeks boast of virtues which they have not, and 
hide vices which they have." 

Or this : One old man said to another, " I am dead 
to this world." " Do not trust yourself," quoth the 
other, " till you are out of this world. If you are 
dead, the devil is not." 

Two old men lived in the same cell, and had never 
disagreed. Said one to the other, " Let us haye just 
one quarrel, like other men." Quoth the other : " I 
do not know what a quarrel is like. " Quoth the first ; 
" Here — I will put a brick between us, and say that 
it is mine : and you shall say it is not mine ; and 
over that let us have a contention and a squabble." 
But when they put the brick between them, and one 
said, " It is mine," the other said, " I hope it is mine." 
And when the first said, " It is mine, it is not yours," 
he answered, " If it is yours, take it." So they could 
not find out how to have a quarrel. 

Anger, malice, revenge, were accursed things in 
the eyes of these men. There was enough of them 
and too much, among their monks ; but far less 
doubt not, than in the world outside. For within the 
monastery it was preached against, repressed, pun- 
ished ; and when repented of, forgiven, with loving 
warnings and wise rules against future transgression. 

Abbot Agathon used to say, " I never went to 
sleep with a quarrel against any man ; nor did I, as 
far as lay in me, let one who had a quarrel against me 
sleep till he had made peace." 

Abbot Isaac was* asked why the devils feared him 



I4 S THE HERMITS. 

so much. " Since I was made a monk," he said, " I 
settled with myself that no angry word should come 
out of my mouth." 

An old man said, " Anger arises from these four 
things : from the lust of avarice, in giving and receiv- 
ing ; from loving one's own opinion ; from wishing to 
be honored ; and from fancying oneself a teacher and 
hoping to be wiser than everybody. And anger ob- 
scures human reason by these four ways: if a man 
hate his neighbor ; or if he envy him ; or if he look 
on him as nought ; or if he speak evil of him." 

A brother being injured by another, came to 
Abbot Sidonius, told his story, and said, " I wish to 
avenge myself, father." The abbot begged him to 
leave vengeance to God: but when he refused, said, 
" Then let us pray." Whereon the old man rose, and 
said, " God, thou art not necessary to us any longer, 
that thou shouldest be careful of us : for we, as this 
brother says, both will and can avenge ourselves.'' 
At which that brother fell at his feet, and begged 
pardon, promising never to strive with his enemy. 

Abbot Paemen said often, " Let malice never over- 
come thee. If any man do thee harm, repay him with 
good, that thou mayest conquer evil with good." 

In a congregation at Scetis, when many men's lives 
and conversation had been talked over, Abbot Pior 
held his tongue. After it was over, he went out 
and filled a sack with sand, and put it on his back. 
Then he took a little bag, filled it likewise with sand, 
and carried it before him. And when the brethren 
asked him what he meant, he said. " The sack 



THE HERMITS. 



'40 



behind is my own sins, which are very many : yet 
I have cast them behind my back, and will not 
see them, nor weep over them. But I have put 
these few sins of my brother's before my eyes, 
and am tormenting myself over them, and con- 
demning my brother." 

A brother having committed a fault, went to 
Antony, and his brethren followed, upbraiding him 
and wanting to bring him back ; while he denied 
having done the wrong. Abbot Paphnutius was 
there, and spoke a parable to them : — 

" I saw on the river bank a man sunk in the mud 
up to his knees. And men came to pull him out, 
and thrust him in up to the neck." 

Then said Antony of Paphnutius, " Behold a man 
who can indeed save souls." 

Abbot Macarius was going up to the mountain 
of Nitria, and sent his disciple on before. The 
disciple met an idol-priest hurrying on, and carry- 
ing a great beam : to whom he cried, " Where art 
thou running, devil?" At which he was wroth, 
and beat him so that he left him half dead, and 
then ran on, and met Macarius, who said, " Sal- 
vation to thee, laborer, salvation ! " He answered, 
wondering, " What good hast thou seen in me 
that thou salutest me ? " " Because I saw thee 

working and running, though ignorantly." To whom 
the priest said, " Touched by thy salutation, I 
knew thee to be a great servant of God ; for 
another — I know not who — miserable monk met 
me and insulted me, and I gave him blows foi 



'5° 



THE HERMITS. 



his words." Then laying hold of Macarius's feet 
he said, " Unless thou make me a monk I will not 
leave hold of thee." 

After all, of the best of these men are told ( with 
much honesty) many sayings which show they felt 
in theii minds and hearts that the spirit was above 
the letter: sayings which show that they had, at least 
at times glimpses of a simpler and more possible 
virtue ; foretastes of a perfection more human, and it 
may be more divine. 

" Better, 1 ' said Abbot Hyperichius, " to eat flesh 
and drink wine, than to eat our brethren's flesh with 
bitter words." 

A brother asked an elder, " Give me, father one 
thing which I may keep, and be saved thereby." 
The elder answered, " If thou canst be injured and 
insulted, and hear and be silent, that is a great thing, 
and above all the other commandments." 

One of the elders used to say, " Whatever a man 
shrinks from let him not do to another. Dost thou 
shrink if any man detracts from thee ? Speak not 
ill of another. Dost thou shrink if any man slanders 
thee, or if any man takes aught from thee ? Do not 
that or the like to another man. For he that shall 
have kept this saying, will find it suffice for his 
salvation." 

" The nearer," said Abbot Muthues, " a man ap- 
proaches God, the more he will see himself to be 
a sinner." 

Abbot Sisois, when he lay dying, begged to live 
a little while longer, that he might repent ; and when 



THE HERMITS. 



1 S 1 



they wondered, he told them that he had not yet even 
begun repentance. Whereby they saw that he was 
perfect in the fear of the Lord. 

But the most startling confession of all must have 
been that wrung from the famous Macarius the elder. 
He had been asked once by a brother, to tell him a 
rule by which he might be saved ; and his answer had 
been this : — to fly from men, to sit in his cell, and to 
lament for his sins continually ; and, what was above 
all virtues, to keep his tongue in order as well as his 
appetite. 

But (whether before or after that answer is not 
said) he gained a deeper insight into true virtue, on 
the day when (like Antony when he was reproved by 
the example of the tanner in Alexandria) he heard a 
voice telling him that he was inferior to two women 
who dwelt in the nearest town. Catching up his staff, 
like Antony, he went off to see the wonder. The 
women, when questioned by him as to their works, 
were astonished. They had been simply good wives 
for years past, married to two brothers, and living in 
the same house. But when pressed by him, they 
confessed that they had never said afoul word to each 
other, and never quarrelled. At one time they had 
agreed together to retire into a nunnery, but could 
not for all their prayers, obtain the consent of their 
husbands. On which they had both made an oath, 
that they would never, to their deaths, speak one 
worldly word. 

Which when the blessed Macarius had heard, he 
said, " In truth there is neither virgin, nor married 



THE HERMITS 



woman, nor monk, nor secular ; but God only re- 
quires the intention, and ministers the spirit of life 
to all." 



THE HERMITS. 153 



ARSENIUS. 

I shall give one more figure, and that a truly 
tragical one, from these " Lives of the Egyptian 
Fathers," namely, that of the once great and famous 
Arsenius, the Father (as he was at one time called) of 
the Emperors. Theodosius, the great statesman and 
warrior, who for some twenty years kept up by his 
single hand the falling empire of Rome, heard how 
Arsenius was at once the most pious and the most 
learned of his subjects ; and wishing — naif barbarian 
as he was himself — that his sons should be brought 
up, not only as scholars, but as Christians, he sent 
for Arsenius to his court, and made him tutor to his 
two sons Honorius and Arcadius. But the two lads 
had neither their father's strength nor their father's 
nobleness. Weak and profligate, they fretted Ar- 
senius's soul day by day ; and, at last, so goes the 
story, provoked him so far that, according to the 
fashion of a Roman pedagogue, he took the ferula 
and administered to one of the princes a caning, which 
he no doubt deserved. The young prince, in revenge, 
plotted against his life. Among the parasites of the 
palace it was not difficult to find those who would use 
steel and poison readily enough in the service of a n 



154 THE HERMITS. 

heir-apparent, and Arsenius fled for his life: and 
fled, as men were wont in those days, to Egypt and 
the Thebaid. Forty years old he was when he left the 
court, and forty years more he spent among the cells 
at Scetis, weeping day and night. He migrated after- 
wards to a place called Troe, and there died at the 
age of ninety-five, having wept himself, say his ad- 
mirers, almost blind. He avoided, as far as possible, 
beholding the face of man ; upon the face of woman 
he would never look. A noble lady, whom he had 
known probably in the world, came all the way from 
Rome to see him ; but he refused himself to her 
slernly, almost roughly. He had known too much 
of the fine ladies of the Roman court ; all he cared 
for was peace. There is a story of him that, changing 
once his dwelling-place, probably from Scetis to Troe, 
he asked, somewhat peevishly, of the monks around 
him, " What that noise was ? " They told him it was 
only the wind among the reeds. "Alas!" he said, 
" I have fled everywhere in search of silence, and yet 
here the very reeds speak." The simple and compar- 
atively unlearned monks around him looked with a 
profound respect on the philosopher, courtier, scholar, 
who had cast away the real pomps and vanities of 
this life, such as they had never known. There is 
a story told, plainly concerning Arsenius, though his 
name is not actually mentioned in it, how a certain 
old monk saw him lying upon a softer mat than his 
fellows, and indulged with a few more comforts ; and 
complained indignantly of his luxury, and the abbot's 
favoritism. Then asked the abbot, " What didst thou 



THE HERMITS. 



55 



eat before thou becamest a monk ? " He confessed 
he had been glad enough to fill his stomach with a 
few beans. " How wert thou dressed ? " He was 
glad enough, again he confessed, to have any clothes 
at all on his back. " Where didst thou sleep ? 1' 
" Often enough on the bare ground in the open air," 
was the answer. " Then," said the abbot, " thou art, 
by thy own confession, better off as a monk than thou 
wast as a poor laboring man ; and yet thou grudgest 
a little comfort to one who has given up more luxury 
than thou hast ever beheld. This man slept beneath 
silken canopies; he was carried in gilded litters, by 
trains of slaves ; he was clothed in purple and fine 
linen ;' he fed upon all the delicacies of the great city : 
and he has given up all for Christ. And what hast 
thou given up, that thou shouldst grudge him a softer 
mat, or a little more food each day ? " And so the 
monk was abashed, and held his peace. 

As for Arsenius's tears, it is easy to call his grief 
exaggerated or superstitious : but those who look on 
them with human eyes will pardon them, and watch 
with sacred pity the grief of a good man, who felt 
that his life had been an utter failure. He saw his 
two pupils, between whom, at their father's death the 
Roman Empire was divided into Eastern and Western, 
grow more and more incapable of governing. He saw 
a young barbarian, whom he must have often met at 
the court in Byzantium, as Master of the Horse, come 
down from his native forests, and sack the Eternal 
City of Rome. He saw evil and woe unspeakable fall 
on that world which he had left behind him, till the 



1-6 THE HERMITS. 

earth was filled with blood, and Antichrist seemed 
ready to appear, and the day of judgment to be at 
hand. And he had been called to do what he could 
to stave off this ruin, to make those young princes 
decree justice and rule in judgment by the fear of God. 
But he had failed ; and there was nothing left to him 
save self-accusation and regret, and dread lest some, at 
least, of the blood which had been shed might be re- 
quired at his hands. Therefore, sitting on his palm- 
mat there in Troe, he wept his life away ; happier, 
nevertheless, and more honorable in the sight of God 
and man than if, like a Mazarin or a Tallyrand, and 
many another crafty politician, both in Church and 
State, he had hardened his heart against his own 
mistakes, and, by crafty intrigue and adroit changing 
of sides at the right moment, had contrived to secure 
for himself, out of the general ruin, honor and power, 
and wealth, and delicate food, and a luxurious home, 
and so been one of those of whom the Psalmist says, 
with awful irony, " So long as thou doest well unto 
thyself, men will speak good of thee." 

One'good deed at least Arsenius had seen done — a 
deed which has lasted to all time, and done, too, to 
the eternal honor of his order, by a monk — namely, 
the abolition of gladiator shows. For centuries these 
wholesale murders had lasted through the Roman 
Republic and through the Roman Empire. Human 
beings in the prime of youth and health, captives or 
slaves, condemned malefactors, and even free-born 
men, who hired themselves out to death, had been 
trained to destroy each other in the amphitheatre for 



THE HERMITS. 



iS7 



the amusement, not merely of the Roman mob, but of 
the Roman ladies. Thousands sometimes in a single 
day, had been 

" Butchered to make a Roman holiday." 

The training of gladiators had become a science. By 
their weapons and their armor, and their modes of 
fighting, they had been distinguished into regular 
classes, of which the antiquaries count up full eighteen ■ 
Andabatse, who wore helmets without any opening 
for the eyes, so that they were obliged to fight blind- 
fold, and thus excited the mirth of the spectators. 
Hoplomachi, who fought in a complete suit of "armor ; 
Mirmillones, who had the image of a fish upon their 
helmets, and fought in armor with a short sword, 
matched usually against the Retiarii, who fought with- 
out armor, and whose weapons were a casting-net and 
a trident. These, and other species of fighters, were 
drilled and fed in " families " by Lanistae, or regular 
trainers, who let them out to persons wishing to 
exhibit a show. Women, even high-born ladies, had 
been seized informer times with the madness of fight- 
ing, and, as shameless as cruel, had gone down into 
the arena to delight with their own wounds and their 
own gore the eyes of the Roman people. 

And these things were done, and done too often, 
under the auspices of the gods, and at their most 
0. sacred festivals. So deliberate and organized a system 
of wholesale butchery has never perhaps existed on 
this earth before or since, not even in the worship of 
those Mexican gods whose idols Cortez and his soldiers 



tgg THE HE KM ITS. 

found fed with human hearts, and the walls of their 
temples crusted with human gore. Gradually the 
spirit of the Gospel had been triumphing over this 
abomination. Ever since the time of Tertullian, in 
the second century, Christian preachers and writers 
had lifted up their voice in the name of humanity. 
Towards the end of the third century, the emperors 
themselves had so far yielded to the voice of reason, 
as to forbid by edicts the gladiatorial fights. But 
the public opinion of the mob in most of the great 
cities had been too strong both for saints and for 
emperors. St. Augustine himself tells us of the horribk 
joy which he, in his youth, had seen come over the 
vast ring of flushed faces at these horrid sights ; and 
in Arsenius's own time, his miserable pupil, the weak 
Honorius, bethought himself of celebrating once more 
the heathen festival of the Secular Games, and formally 
to allow therein an exhibition of gladiators, But in 
the midst cf that show sprang down into the arena 
of the Colosseum of Rome an unknown monk, some 
said from Nitria, some from Phrygia, and with his 
own hands parted the combatants in the name of 
Christ and God. The mob, baulked for a moment of 
their pleasure, sprang on him and stoned him to 
death. But the crime was followed by a sudden 
revulsion of feeling. By an edict of the emperor the 
gladiatorial sports were forbidden for ever ; and the 
Colosseum, thenceforth useless, crumbled slowly away 
into that vast ruin which remains unto this day, 
purified, as men well said, from the blood of tens of 
thousands, by the blood of one true and noble martyr. 



THE HERMITS. 



r 59 



THE HERMITS OF ASIA. 

The impulse which, given by Antony, had been 
propagated in Asia by his great pupil, Hilarion, spread 
rapidly far and wide. Hermits took possession of 
the highest peaks of Sinai ; and driven from thence, 
so tradition tells, by fear of those mysterious noises 
which still haunt its cliffs, settled at that sheltered 
spot where now stands the convent of St. Catharine. 
Massacred again and again by the wild Arab tribes, 
their places were filled up by fresh hermits, and their 
spiritual descendants hold the convent to this clay. 

Through the rich and luxuriant region of Syria, 
and especially round the richest and most luxurious of 
its cities, Antioch, hermits settled, and bore, by the 
severity of their lives, a noble witness against the 
profligacy of its inhabitants, who had half renounced 
the paganism of their forefathers without renouncing 
in the least, it seems, those sins which drew down of 
old the vengeance of a righteous God upon their fore- 
fathers, whether in Canaan or in Syria itself. 

At Antioch, about the year 347, was born the 
famous Chrysostom, John of the Golden Mouth ; and 
near Antioch he became a hermit, and dwelt, so 
legends say, several years alone in the wilderness : till, 



j6 the hermits. 

nerved by that hard training, he went forth again 
into the world to become, whether at Antioch or at 
Constantinople, the bravest as well as the most elo- 
quent preacher of righteousness and rebuker of sin 
which the world had seen since the times of St. Paul 
The labors of Chrysostom belong not so much to 
this book as to a general ecclesiastical history ; but it 
must not be forgotten that he, like all the great men 
of that age, had been a monk, and kept up his mon- 
astic severity, even in the midst of the world, untill 
his dying day. 

At Nisibis, again, upon the very frontier of Persia 
appeared another very remarkable personage, known 
as the Great Jacob or Great St. James. Taking (says 
his admiring biographer, Theodoret of Cyra) to the 
peaks of the loftiest mountains, he passed his life on 
them, in spring and summer haunting the woods, with 
the sky for a roof, but sheltering himself in winter in 
a cave. His food was wild fruits and mountain herbs. 
He never used a fire, and, clothed in a goats' hair 
garment, was perhaps the first of those Boscoi, or 
" browsing hermits," who lived literally like the wild 
animals in the flesh, while they tried to live like angels 
in the spirit. 

Some of the stories told of Jacob savor of that 
vindictiveness which Giraldus Cambrencis, in after 
years, attributed to the saints in Ireland. He was 
walking one day over the Persian frontier, " to visit 
the plants of true religion" and " bestow on them 
due care," when he passed at a fountain a troop of 
.lamsels washing clothes and treading them with their 



THE HERMITS. 161 

feet. They seem, according to the story, to have 
stared at the wild man, instead of veiling their faces 
or letting down their garments. No act or word of 
rudeness is reported of them : but Jacob's modesty or 
pride was so much scandalized that he cursed both 
the fountain and the girls. The fountain of course 
dried up forthwith, and the damsels' hair turned gray. 
They ran weeping into the town. The townsfolk 
came out, and compelled Jacob, by their prayers, to 
restore the water to their fountain ; but the gray hair 
he refused to restore to its original hue unless the 
damsels would come and beg pardon publicly them- 
selves. The poor girls were ashamed to come, and 
their hair remained gray. ever after. 

A story like this may raise a smile in some o: my 
readers, in others something like indignation or con- 
tempt. But as long as such legends remain in these 
hermit lives, told with as much gravity as any other 
portion of the biography, and eloquently lauded, as 
*this deed is, by Bishop Theodoret, as proofs of the 
holiness and humanity of the saint, an honest author 
is bound to notice some of them at least, and not to 
give an alluring and really dishonest account of these 
men and their times, by detailing every anecdote 
which can elevate them in the mind of the reader, 
while he carefully omits all that may justly disgust 
him. 

Yet, after all, we are not bound to believe this 
legend, any more than we are bound to believe that 
when Jacob saw a Persian judge give an unjust sen- 
tence, he forthwith cursed, not him, but a rock close 
U 



iS 2 THE HERMITS. 

by, which instantly crumbled into innumerable frag- 
ments, so terrifying that judge that he at once re- 
voked his sentence, and gave a just decision. 

Neither, again, need we believe that it was by 
sending, as men said in his own days, swarms of mos- 
quitos against the Persian invaders, that he put to 
flight their elephants and horses : and yet it may be 
true that, in the famous siege of Nisibis, Jacob 
played the patriot and the valiant man. For when 
Sapor, the Persian king, came against Nisibis with 
all his forces, with troops of elephants, and huge ma- 
chines of war, and towers full of archers wheeled up 
to the walls, and at last, damming the river itself, 
turned its current against the fortifications of un- 
burnt brick, until a vast breach was opened in the 
walls, then Jacob, standing in the breach, encouraged 
by his prayers his fellow-townsmen to stop it with 
stone, brick, timber, and whatsoever came to hand ; 
and Sapor, the Persian Sultan, saw "that divine man," '. 
and his goats' hair tunic and cloak seemed trans- * 
formed into a purple robe and royal diadem. And, 
whether he was seized with superstitious fear, or 
whether the hot sun or the marshy ground had in- 
fected his troops with disease, or whether the mos- 
quito swarms actually became intolerable, the great 
King of Persia turned and went away. 

So Nisibis was saved for awhile ; to be shame- 
fully surrendered to the Persians a few years after- 
wards by the weak young Emperor Jovian. Old Arami- 
anus Marcellinus, brave soldier as he was, saw with dis- 
gust the whole body of citizens ordered to quit the city 



THE HERMITS. 



163 



within three days, and " men appointed to compel 
obedience to the order, with threats of death to every 
one who delayed his departure ; and the whole city 
was a scene of mourning and lamentation, and in 
every quarter nothing was heard but one universal 
wail, matrons tearing their hair, and about to be 
driven from the homes in which they had been born 
and brought up ; the mother who had lost her 
children, or the wife who had lost her husband, about 
to be torn from the place rendered sacred by their 
shades, clinging to their door-posts, embracing their 
thresholds, and pouring forth floods of tears. Every 
road was crowded, each person struggling away as he 
could. Many, too, loaded themselves with as much 
of their property as they thought they could carry, 
while leaving behind them abundant and costly fur- 
niture, which they could not remove for want of beasts 
of burden." * 

One treasure, however, they did remove, of which 
the old soldier Ammianus says nothing, and which, had 
he seen it pass him on the road, he would have treated 
with supreme contempt. And that, says Theodoret, 
was the holy body of " their prince and defender," St. 
James the mountain hermit, round which the emi- 
grants chanted, says Theodoret, hymns of regret and 
praise, " for, had he been alive, that city would have 
never passed into barbarian hands." 

There stood with Jacob in the breach, during that 
siege of Nisibis, a man of gentler temperament, a 
disciple of his, who had received baptism at his hands, 

* Ammianus Marcellinus, Book xxv. cap. 9. 



r 6 4 THE HERMITS. 

and who was, like himself, a hermit — Ephraim, or 
Ephrem, of Edessa, as he is commonly called, for, 
though born at Nisibis, his usual home was at Edessa, 
the metropolis of a Syrian-speaking race. Into the 
Syrian tongue Ephrem translated the doctrines of 
the Christian faith and the Gospel history, and spread 
abroad, among the heathen round, a number of delicate 
and graceful hymns, which remain to this day, and of 
which some have lately been translated into English.* 
Soft, sad, and dreamy as they were, they had strength 
and beauty enough in them to supersede the Gnostic 
hymns of Bardesanes and his son Harmonius, which 
had been long popular among the Syrians ; and for cen- 
turies afterwards, till Christianity was swept away by 
the followers of Mahomet, the Syrian husbandman 
beguiled his toil with the pious and plaintive melodies 
of St. Ephrem. 

But Ephrem was not only a hermit and a poet : he 
was a preacher and a missionary. If he wept, as it 
was said, day and night for his own sins and the sins 
of mankind, he did his best at least to cure those sins. 
He was a demagogue, or a leader of the people, for good 
and not for evil, to whom the simple Syrians looked up 
for many a year as their spiritual father. He died in 
peace, as he said himself, like the laborer who has 
finished his day's work, like the wandering merchant 
who returns to his fatherland, leaving nothing behind 
him save prayers and counsels, for " Ephrem," he 
added, " had neither wallet nor pilgrim's staff." 

" His last utterance" ^1 owe this fact to M. de Mon- 

• By Dr. Burgess 



TITE HERMITS. 



i*5 



talembert's book, " Moines d'Occident ") " was a pro- 
test on behalf of the dignity of man redeemed by the 
Son of God." 

" The young and pious daughter of the Governor 
of Edessa came weeping to receive his latest breath. 
He made her swear never again to be carried in a lit- 
ter by slaves. ' The neck of man,' he said, ' should 
bear no yoke save that of Christ.' " This anecdote is 
one among many which go to prove that from the 
time that St. Paul had declared the great truth that in 
Christ jesus was neither bond nor free, and had pro- 
claimed the spiritual brotherhood of all men in Christ, 
slavery, as an institution, was doomed to slow but 
certain death. But that death was accelerated by the 
monastic movement, wherever it took root. A class 
of men who came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister to others ; who prided themselves upon need- 
ing fewer luxuries than the meanest slaves ; who took 
rank among each other and among men not on the 
ground of race, nor of official position, nor of wealth, 
nor even of intellect, but simply on the ground of 
virtue, was a perpetual protest against slavery and 
tyranny of every kind; a perpetual witness to the 
world that, whether all men were equal or not in the 
sight of God, the only rank among them of which 
God would take note, would be their rank in good- 
ness. 



10 6 THE HERMITS. 



BASIL. 



On the south shore of the Black Sea, eastward of 
Sinope, there dwelt in those days, at the mouth of the 
River Iris, a hermit as gentle and as pure as Ephrem 
of Edessa. Beside a roaring waterfall, amid deep 
glens and dark forests, with distant glimpses of the 
stormy sea beyond, there lived on bread and water a 
graceful gentleman, young and handsome ; a scholar 
too, who had drunk deeply at the fountains of Pagan 
philosophy and poetry, and had been educated with 
care at Constantinople and at Athens, as well as at 
his native city of Caesaraea, in the heart of Asia Minor, 
now dwindled under Turkish misrule into a wretched 
village. He was heir to great estates ; the glens and 
forests round him were his own : and that was the 
use which he made of them. On the other side of 
the torrent, his mother and sister, a maiden of won- 
derful beauty, lived the hermit life, on a footing of 
perfect equality with their female slaves, and the 
pious women who had joined them. 

Basil's austerities — or rather the severe climate of 
the Black Sea forests — brought him to an early grave. 
But his short life was spent well enough. He was a 



THE HERMITS. 



167 



poet, with an eye for the beauty of nature — especially 
for the beauty of the sea — most rare in those times ; 
and his works are full of descriptions of scenery as 
healthy-minded as they are vivid and graceful. 

In his travels through Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, 
he had seen the hermits, and longed to emulate them ; 
but (to do him justice) his ideal of the so-called 
" religious life " was more practical than those of the 
solitaries of Egypt, who had been his teachers. " It 
was the life '' says Dean Milman, * " of the industri- 
ous religious community, not of the indolent and sol- 
itary anchorite, which to Basil was the perfection of 
Christianity. . . . The indiscriminate charity of these 
institutions was to receive orphans " of which there 
were but too many in those evil days, " of all classes, 
for education and maintenance : but other children 
only with the consent or at the request of parents 
certified before witnesses ; and vows were by no means 
to be enforced upon these youthful pupils. Slaves 
who fled to the monasteries were to be admonished 
and sent back to their owners. There is one reserva- 
tion," and that one only too necessary then, " that 
slaves were not bound to obey their master, if he 
should order what is contrary to the law of God. 
Industry was to be the animating principle of these 
settlements. Prayer and psalmody were to have 
their stated hours, but by no means to intrude on 
those devoted to useful labor. These labors were 
strictly defined ; such as were of real use to the com- 
munity, not those which might contribute to vice or 

* History of Christianity vol. iii. p. 109. ■ 



j 68 THE HERMITS. 

luxury. Agriculture was especially recommended. 
The life was in no respect to be absorbed in a per- 
petual mystic communion with the Deity." 

The ideal which Basil set before him was never 
fulfilled in the East. Transported to the West by St. 
Benedict, " the father of all monks," it became that 
conventual system which did so much during the early 
middle age, not only for the conversion and civiliza- 
tion, but for the arts and the agriculture of Europe. 

Basil, like his bosom friend, Gregory of Nazianzen, 
had to go forth from his hermitage into the world, and 
be a bishop, and fight the battles of the true faith. 
But, as with Gregory, his hermit-training had strength- 
ened his soul, while it weakened his body. The 
Emperor Valens, supporting the Arians against the 
orthodox, sent to Basil his Prefect of the Prsetorium, 
an officer of the highest rank. The prefect argued, 
threatened : Basil was firm. " I never met," said he 
at last, "such boldness." "Because," said Basil, 
"you never met a bishop." The prefect returned to 
his emperor. " My lord, we are conquered ; this 
bishop is above threats. We can do nothing but by 
force." The emperor shrank from that crime, and 
Basil and the orthodoxy of his diocese were saved. 
The rest of his life and of Gregory's belongs, like that 
of Chrysostom, to general history, and we need pur- 
sue it no further here. 

I said that Basil's idea of what monks should be 
was never carried out in the East, and it cannot be 
denied that, as the years went on, the hermit life took 
a form less and less practical, and more and more 



THE HERMITS. 169 

repulsive also. Such men as Antony, Hilarion, Basil, 
had valued the ascetic training, not so much because 
it had, as they thought, a merit in itself, but because 
it enabled the spirit to rise above the flesh ; because 
it gave them strength to conquer their passions and 
appetites,, and leave their soul free to think and act. 
But their disciples, especially in Syria, seem to have 
attributed more and more merit to the mere act of 
inflicting want and suffering on themselves. Their 
souls were darkened, besides, more and more, by a 
doctrine unknown to the Bible, unknown to the early 
Christians, and one which does not seem to have had 
any strong hold of the mind of Antony himself — 
namely, that sins committed after baptism could only 
be washed away by tears, and expiated by penance ; 
that for them the merits of him who died for the sins 
of the whole world were of little or of no avail. There-, 
fore, in perpetual fear of punishment hereafter, they 
set their whole minds to punish themselves on earth, 
always tortured by the dread that they were not pun- 
ishing themselves enough, till they crushed down 
alike body, mind, and soul into an abject superstition, 
the details of which are too repulsive to be written 
here. Some of the instances of this self-invented 
misery which are recorded, even as early as the time 
of Theodoret, bishop of Cyra, in the middle of the 
fifth century, make us wonder at the puzzling incon- 
sistencies of the human mind. Did these poor crea- 
tures really believe that God could be propitiated by 
the torture of his own creatures ? What sense could 
Theodoret (who was a good man himself) have put 



170 THE HERMITS. 

upon the words, " God is good," or " God is love," 
while he was looking with satisfaction, even with 
admiration and awe, on practices which were more 
fit for worshippers of Moloch ? 

Those who think these words too strong, may 
judge for themselves how far they apply to his story 
of Marana and Cyra. 

Marana, then, and Cyra were two young ladies o." 
Berhaea, who had given up all the pleasures of life to 
settle themselves in a roofless cottage outside the 
town. They had stopped up the door with stones 
and clay, and allowed it only to be opened at the 
feast of Pentecost. Around them lived certain female 
slaves who had voluntarily chosen the same life, and 
who were taught and exhorted through a little window 
by their mistresses ; or rather, it would seem, by 
Marana alone : for Cyra (who was bent double by 
her " training ") was never to speak. Theodoret, as a 
priest, was allowed to enter the sacred enclosure, and 
found them shrouded from head to foot in long veils, 
so that neither their faces or hands could be seen ; 
and underneath their veils, burdened on every limb, 
poor wretches, with such a load of iron chains and 
rings that a strong man, he says, could not have stood 
under the weight. Thus had they endured for two- 
and-forty years, exposed to sun and wind, to frost and 
rain, taking no food at times for many days together. 
I have no mind to finish the picture, and still less to 
record any of the phrases of rapturous admiration 
with which Bishop Theodoret comments upon their 
pitiable superstition. 



THE HERMITS. T7T 



SIMEON STYLITES. 

Of all such anchorites of the far East, the most 
remarkable, perhaps, was the once famous Simeon 
Stylites — a name almost forgotten, save by antiqua- 
ries and ecclesiastics, till Mr. Tennyson made it once 
more notorious in a poem as admirable for its savage 
grandness, as for its deep knowledge of human nature- 
He has comprehended thoroughly, as it seems to me, 
that struggle between self-abasement and self-conceit, 
between the exaggerated sense of sinfulness and the 
exaggerated ambition of saintly honor, which must 
have gone on in the minds of these ascetics — the 
temper which could cry out one moment with perfect 
honesty, — 

" Although I be the basest of mankind, 
From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin ; " 

and at the next, — 

" I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold 
Of saintdom ; and to clamor, mourn and sob, 
Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer. 
Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. 
Let this avail, just, dreadful, mightv God, 
This not be all in vain, that thrice ten years 
Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, 



, 7 z THE HERMITS. 

A sign between the meadow and the cloud, 

Patient on this tall pillar I have borne 

Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow ; 

And I had hoped that ere this period closed 

Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest, 

Denying not these weather-beaten limbs 

The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. 

O take the meaning, Lord : I do not breathe, 

Not whisper any murmur of complaint. 

Pain heaped ten hundred-fold to this, were still 

Less burthen, by ten hundred-fold, to bear 

Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crushed 

My spirit flat before thee." 

Admirably also has Mr. Tennyson conceived the 
hermit's secret doubt of the truth of those miracles, 
which he is so often told that he has worked, that he 
at last begins to believe that he must have worked 
them ; and the longing, at the same time, to justify 
himself to himself, by persuading himself that he 
has earned miraculous powers. On this whole ques- 
tion of hermit miracles I shall speak at length here- 
after. I have given specimens enough of them 
already, and shall give as few as possible henceforth. 
There is a sameness about them which may become 
wearisome to those who cannot be expected to be- 
lieve them. But what the hermits themselves thought 
of them, is told (at least, so I suspect) only too truly 
by Mr. Tennyson, — 

" O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; 

A sinful man, conceived and born in sin : 

'Tis their own doing ; this is none of mine ; 

Lav it not to me. Am I to blame for this. 

That here come those who worship me ? Ha ! ha I 

The silly people take me for a saint. 



THE HERMITS. 173 

And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers : 
And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here), 
Have all in all endured as much, and more 
Than many just and holy men, whose names 
Are register'd and calendar'd for saints. 

Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. 
What is it I can have done to merit this ? 
It may be I have wrought some miracles, 
And cured some halt and maimed : but what of that ? 
It may be, no one, even among the saints, 
Can match his pains with mine : but what of that ? 
Yet do not rise ; for you may look on me, 
And in your looking you may kneel to God. 
Speak, is- there any of you halt and maimed ? 
I think you know I have some power with heaven 
From my long penance ; let him speak his wish. 

Yes, I can heal him. Power goes forth from me. 
They say that they are healed. Ah, hark ! they shout, 
' St. Simeon Stylites ! ' Why, if so, 
God reaps a harvest in me. O my souL 
God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, 
Can I work miracles, and not be saved ? 
This is not told of any. They were saints. 
It cannot be but that I shall be saved ; 
Yea, crowned a saint." 

I shall not take the liberty of quoting more : but 
shall advise all who read these pages to study seri- 
ously Mr. Tennyson's poem if they wish to understand 
that darker side of the hermit life which became at 
last, in the East, the only side of it. For in the East 
the hermits seem to have degenerated, by the time 
of the Mahommedan conquest, into mere self-torturing 
fakeers, like those who may be seen to this day in 
Hindostan. The salt lost its savor, and in due time 
it was trampled under foot ; and the armies of the 
Moslem swept out of the East a superstition which 



7 A 



1 HE HERMITS. 



had ended by enervating instead of ennobling hu- 
manity. 

But in justice, not only to myself, but to Mr 
Tennyson (whose details of Simeon's asceticism may 
seem to some exaggerated and impossible), I have 
thought fit to give his life at length, omitting only 
many of his miracles, and certain stories of his pen- 
ances, which can only excite horror and disgust, with- 
out edifying the reader. 

There were, then, three hermits of this name, 
often confounded ; and all alike famous (as were Ju- 
lian, Daniel, and other Stylites) for standing for many 
years on pillars. One of the Simeons is said by 
Moschus to have been struck by lightning, and his 
death to have been miraculously revealed to Julian 
the Stylite, who lived twenty-four miles off. More 
than one Stylite, belonging to the Monophysite heresy 
of Severus Acephalus, was to be found, according to 
Moschus, in the East at the beginning of the seventh 
century. This biography is that of the elder Simeon, 
who died (according to Cedrenus) about 460, after 
passing some forty or fifty years upon pillars of differ- 
ent heights. There is much discrepancy in the ac- 
counts, both of his date and of his age ; but that 
such a person really existed, and had his imitators, 
there can be no doubt. He is honored as a saint alike 
by the Latin and by the Greek Churches. 

His life has been written by a disciple of his named 
Antony, who protesses to have been with him when 
he died; and also by Theodoret, who knew him well . 
in life. Both are to be found in Rosweyde, and there 



THE HERMITS. 



75 



seems no reason to doubt their authenticity. I have 
therefore interwoven them both, marking the para- 
graphs taken from each. 

Theodoret, who says that he was born in the 
village of Gesa, between Antioch and Cilicia, calls 
him that "famous Simeon — that great miracle of the 
whole world, whom all who obey the Roman rule 
know ; whom the Persians also know, and the In- 
dians, and ^Ethiopians ; nay, his fame has even spread 
to the wandering Scythians, and taught them his love 
of toil and love Of wisdom ; " and says that he might 
be compared with Jacob the patriarch, Joseph the 
temperate, Moses the legislator, David the king and 
prophet, Micaiah the prophet, and the divine men 
who were like them. He tells how Simeon, as a boy, 
kept his father's sheep, and, being forced by heavy 
snow to leave them in the fold, went with his parents 
to the church, and there heard the Gospel which 
blesses those who mourn and weep, and calls those 
miserable who laugh, and those enviable who have a 
pure heart. And when he asked a bystander what 
he would gain who did each of these things, the man 
propounded to him the solitary life, and pointed out 
to him the highest philosophy. 

This, Theodoret says, he heard from the saint's 
own tongue. His disciple Antony gives the story of 
his conversion somewhat differently. 



, St. Simeon (says Antony) was chosen by God 
from his birth, and used to study how to obey and 



176 THE HERMITS. 

please him. Now his father's name was Susocion, 
and he was brought up by his parents. 

When he was thirteen years old, he was feeding his 
father's sheep ; and seeing a church he left the sheep 
and went in, and heard an epistle being read. And 
when he asked an elder, " Master, what is that which 
is read ?" the old man replied, "For the substance 
(or very being) of the soul, that a man may learn to 
fear God with his whole heart, and his whole mind." 
Quoth the blessed Simeon, " What is to fear God ? " 
Quoth the elder, "Wherefore troublest thou me, my 
son ? " Quoth he, " I inquire of thee, as of God. 
For I wish to learn what I hear from thee, because I 
am ignorant and a fool." The elder answered, " If any 
man shall have fasted continually, and offered prayers 
every moment, and shall have humbled himself to 
every man, and shall not have loved gold, nor parents, 
nor garments, nor possessions, and if he honors his 
father and mother, and follows the priests of God, he 
shall inherit the eternal kingdom : but he who, on the 
contrary, does not keep those things, he shall inherit 
the outer darkness which God hath prepared for the 
devil and his angels. All these things, my son, are 
heaped together in a monastery."' 

Hearing this, the blessed Simeon fell at his feet, 
saying, " Thou art my father and my mother, and my 
teacher of good works, and guide to the kingdom of 
heaven. For thou hast gained my soul, which was 
already being sunk in perdition. May the Lord repay 
thee again for it. For these are the things which 
edify. I will now go into a monastery, where God 



THE HERMITS. 



177 



shall choose ; and let his will be done on me." The 
elder said, " My son, before thou enterest, hear me. 
Thou shalt have tribulation ; for thou must watch and 
serve in nakedness, and sustain ills without ceasing ; 
and again thou shalt be comforted, thou vessel pre- 
cious to God," 

And forthwith the blessed Simeon, going out of the 
church, went to the monastery of the holy Timotheus, 
a wonder-working man ; and falling down before the 
gate of the monastery, he lay five days, neither eating 
nor drinking. And on the fifth day, the abbot, 
comingout, asked him, "Whence art thou, my son ? 
And what parents hast thou, that thou art so 
afflicted ? Or what is thy name, lest perchance thou 
hast done some wrong ? Or perchance thou art a slave, 
and fleest from thy master ? " Then the blessed 
Simeon said with tears, " By no means, master ; but I 
long to be a servant of God, if he so will, because I 
wish to save my lost soul. Bid me, therefore, enter 
the monastery, and leave all ; and send me away no 
more." Then the abbot, taking his hand, introduced 
him into the monastery, saying to the brethren, " My 
sons', behold I deliver you this brother ; teach him the 
canons of the monastery." Now he was in the 
monastery about four months, serving all without 
complaint, in which he learnt the whole Psalter by 
heart, receiving every day divine food. But the food 
which he took with his brethren he gave away 
secretly to the poor, not caring for the morrow. So 
the brethren ate at even : but he only on the seventh 
day. 

12 



7* 



THE HERMITS 



But one day, having gone to the well to draw 
water, he took the rope from the bucket with which 
the brethren drew water, and wound it round his 
body from his loins to his neck : and going in, said to 
the brethren, " I went out to draw water, and foun 1 
no rope on the bucket." And they said, " Hold thy 
peace, brother, lest the abbot know it ; till the thing 
has passed over." But his body was wounded by the 
tightness and roughness of the rope, because it cut 
him to the bone, and sank into his flesh till it was 
hardly seen. But one day, some of the brethren, going 
out, found him giving his food to the poor ; and when 
they returned, said to the abbot, " Whence hast thou 
brought us that man ? We cannot abstain like him, 
for he fasts from Lord's day to Lord's day, and gives 
away his food." .... Then the abbot, going out, 
found as was told him, and said, " Son, what is it 
which the brethren tell of thee ? Is it not enough for 
thee to fast as we do ? Hast thou not heard the 
Gospel, saying of teachers, that the disciple is not 
above his master ?".... The blessed Simeon stood 
and answered nought. And the abbot, being angry, 
bade strip him, and found the rope round him, so that 
only its outside appeared ; and cried with a loud voice, 
saying, " Whence has this man come to us, wanting 
to destroy the rule of the monastery ? I pray thee 
depart hence, and go whither thou wiliest." And 
with great trouble they took off the rope, and his flesh 
with it, and taking care of him, healed him. 

But after he was healed he went out of the mon- 
astery no man knowing of it, and entered a deserted 



THE HERMITS. 



179 



tank, in which was no water, where unclean spirits 
dwelt. And that very night it was revealed to the 
abbot, that a multitude of people surrounded the 
monastery with clubs and swords, saying, " Give us 
Simeon the servant of God, Timotheus ; else we will 
burn thee with thy monastery, because thou bast 
angered a just man." And when he woke, he told 
the brethren the vision, and how he was much dis- 
turbed thereby. And another night he saw a mul- 
titude of strong men standing and saying, " Give us 
Simeon the servant of God ; for he is- beloved by God 
and the angels : why hast thou vexed him ? He is 
greater than thou before God ; for all the angels are 
sorry on his behalf. And God is minded to set him 
on high in the world, that by him many signs may be 
done, such as no man has done." Then the abbot, 
rising, said with great fear to the brethren, " Seek 
me that man, and bring him hither, lest perchance we 
all die on his account. He is truly a saint of God, 
for I have heard and seen great wonders of him." 
Then all the monks went out and searched, but in 
vain, and told the abbot how they had sought him 
everywhere, save in the deserted tank. . . . Then the 
abbot went, with five brethren, to the tank. And 
making a prayer, he went down into it with the 
brethren. And the blessed Simeon, seeing him, began 
to entreat, saying, " I beg you, servants of God, let 
me alone one hour, that I may render up my spirit ; 
for yet a little, and it will fail. But my soul is very 
weary, because I have angered the Lord." But the 
abbot said to him, " Come, servant of God, that we 



T 8o THE HERMITS, 

may take thee to the monastery ; for I know con- 
cerning thee that thou art a servant of God." But 
when he would not, they brought him by force to the 
monastery. And all fell at his feet, weeping, and 
saying. " We have sinned against thee, servant of 
God ; forgive us." But the blessed Simeon groaned, 
saying, "Wherefore do ye burden an unhappy 
man and a sinner ? You are the servants of God, 
and my fathers." And he stayed there about one 
year. 

After this (says Theodoret) he came to the Tela* 
nassus, under the peak of the mountain on which he 
lived till his death ; and having found there a little 
house he remained in it shut up for three years 
But eager always to increase the riches of virtue. 
he longed, in imitation of the divine Moses and Elias, 
to fast forty days ; and tried to persuade Bassus, who 
was then set over the priests in the villages, to leave 
nothing within by him, but to close up the door with 
clay. He spoke to him of the difficulty, and warned 
him not to think that a violent death was a virtue. 
"Put by me then, father," he said, " ten loaves, and a 
cruse of water, and if I find my body need sustenance 
I will partake of them." At the end of the days, that 
wonderful man of God, Bassus, removed the clay, and 
going in, found the food and water untouched, and 
Simeon lying unable to speak or move. Getting a 
sponge, he moistened and opened his lips and then 
gave him the symbols of the divine mysteries ; and, 
strengthened by them, he arose, and took some food, 



THE HERMITS. r 8i 

chewing, little by little, lettuces and succory, and such 
like. 

From that time, for twenty-eight years ( says Theo- 
doret), he had remained fasting continually for forty 
days at a time. But custom had made it more easy 
to him. For on the first clays he used to stand and 
praise God ; after that, when through emptiness he 
could stand no longer, he used to sit and perform the 
divine office ; and on the last day, even lie down. 
For when his strength failed slowly, he was forced to 
lie half dead. But after he stood on the column he 
could not bear to lie down, but invented another way 
by which he could stand. He fastened a beam to 
the column, and tied himself to it by ropes, and so 
passed the forty days. But afterwards, when he had 
received greater grace from on high, he did not want 
even that help : but stood for the forty days, taking 
no food, but strengthened by alacrity of soul and 
divine grace. 

When he had passed three years in that little house, 
he took possession of the peak which has since been 
so famous ; and when he had commanded a wall to 
be made round him, and procured an iron chain, 
twenty cubits long, he fastened one end of it to a 
great stone, and the other to his right foot, so that 
he could not, if he wished, leave those bounds. There 
he lived, continually picturing heaven to himself, and 
forcing himself to contemplate things which are above 
the heavens ; for the iron bond did not check the 
flight of his thoughts. But when the wonderful 
Meletius, to whom the care of the episcopate of 



1 82 THE HERMITS. 

Antioch was then commended (a man of sense and 
prudence, and adorned with shrewdness of intellect) 
told him that the iron was superfluous, since the 
will is able enough to impose on the body the chains 
of reason, he gave way, and obeyed his persuasion. 
And having sent for a smith, he bade him strike off 
the chain. 

[ Here follow some painful details unnecessary to be 
translated. ] 

When, therefore, his fame was flying far and wide 
everywhere, all ran together, not only the neighbors, 
but those who were many days' journey off, some 
bringing the palsied, some begging health for the sick, 
some that they might become fathers, and all wishing 
to receive from him what they had not received from 
nature ; and when they had received, and gained 
their request, they went back joyful, proclaiming the 
benefits they had obtained, and sending many more 
to beg the same. So, as all are coming up from 
every quarter, and the road is like a river, one may 
see gathered in that place an ocean of men, which 
receives streams from every side ; not only of those 
who live in our region, but Ishmaelites, and 
Persians, and the Armenians who are subject 
to them, and Iberi, and Homerites, and those who 
dwell beyond them. Many have come also from 
the extreme west, Spaniards, and Britons, and Gauls 
who live between the two. Of Italy it is super- 
fluous to speak ; for they say that at Rome the 
man has become so celebrated that they have put 
little images of him m all the porches of the shops, 



THE HERMITS. 183 

providing thereby for themselves a sort of safeguard 
and security. 

When, therefore, they came innumerable (for al 
tried to touch him, and receive some blessing from 
those skin garments of his), thinking it in the first 
place absurd and unfit that such exceeding honor 
should be paid him, and next, disliking the labor 
of the business, he devised that station on the pillar, 
bidding one be built, first of six cubits, then of 
twelve, next of twenty-two, and now of thirty-six. 
For he longs to fly up to heaven, and be freed from 
this earthly conversation. 

But I believe that this station was made not with- 
out divine counsel. Wherefore I exhort fault-finders 
to bridle their tongue, and not let it rashly loose, 
but rather consider that the Lord has often devised 
such things, that he might profit those who were too 
slothful. 

In proof of which, Theodoret quotes the examples 
of Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel ; and then goes on 
to say how God in like manner ordained this new 
and admirable spectacle, by the novelty of it drawing- 
all to look, and exhibiting to those who came, a lesson 
which they could trust. For the novelty of the spec- 
tacle (he says) is a worthy warrant for the teaching ; 
and he who came to see goes away instructed in divine 
things. And as those whose lot it is to rule over men, 
after a certain period of time, change the impressions 
on their coins, sometimes stamping them with images 
of lions, sometimes of stars, sometimes of angels, and 



1 84 'WE HERMITS. 

trying, by a new mark, to make the gold more pre- 
cious ; so the King of all, adding to piety and true re- 
ligion these new and manifold modes of living, as 
certain stamps on coin, excites to praise the tongues, 
not only of the children of faith, but of those who are 
diseased with unbelief. And that so it is, not only 
words bear witness, but facts proclaim aloud. For 
many myriads of Ishmaelites, who were enslaved in 
the darkness of impiety, have been illuminated by 
that station on the column. For this most shining 
lamp, set as it were upon a candlestick, sent forth all 
round its rays, "like of the sun : and one may see (as I 
said) Fberi coming, and Persians, and Armenians, and 
accepting divine baptism. But the Ishmaelites, com- 
ing by tribes, 200 and 300 at a time, and sometimes 
even 1,000, deny, with shouts, the error of their 
fathers ; and breaking in pieces, before that great 
illuminator, the images which they had worshipped, 
and renouncing the orgies of Venus (for they had re- 
ceived from ancient times the worship of that daemon), 
they receive the divine sacraments, and take laws 
from that holy tongue, bidding farewell to their ances- 
tral rites, and renouncing the eating of wild asses and 
camels. And this I have seen with my own eyes, and 
have heard them renouncing the impiety of their 
fathers, and assenting to the Evangelic doctrine. 

But once I was in the greatest danger : for he 
himself told them to go to me, and receive priestly 
benediction, saying that they would thence obtain 
great advantage. But they, having run together in 
somewhat too barbarous fashion, some dragged me 



i 



THE HERMITS. 



*S 



before, some behind, some sideways ; and those who 
were further off, scrambling over the others, and 
stretching out their hands, plucked my beard, or 
seized my clothes ; and I should have been stifled by 
•their too warm onset, had not he, shouting out, dis- 
persed them all. Such usefulness has that column, 
which is mocked at by scornful men, poured forth ; 
and so great a ray of the knowledge of God has it 
sent forth into the minds of barbarians. 

I know also of his having done another thing of 
this kind : — One tribe was beseeching the divine man, 
that he would send forth some prayer and blessing 
for their chief : but another tribe which was present 
retorted that he ought not to bless that chief, but 
theirs ; for the one was a most unjust man, but the 
other averse to injustice. And when there had been 
a great contention and barbaric wrangling between 
them, they attacked each other. But I, using many 
words, kept exhorting them to be quiet, seeing that 
the divine man was able enough to give a blessing to 
both. But the one tribe kept saying, that the first 
chief ought not to have it ; and the other tribe trying 
to deprive the second chief of it. Then he, by threaten- 
ing them from above, and calling them dogs, hardly 
stilled the quarrel. This I have told, wishing to show 
their great faith. For they would not have thus gone 
mad against each other, had they not believed that 
the divine man's blessing possesses some very great 
power. 

I saw another miracle, which was very celebrated. 
One coming up (he, too, was a chief of a Saracen 



x 86 THE HERMITS, 

tribe) besought the divine personage that he would 
help a man whose limbs had given way in paralysis 
on the road, and he said the misfortune had fallen 
on him in Callinicus, which is a very large camp. 
When he was brought into the midst, the saint bade 
him renounce the impiety of his forefathers ; and 
when he willingly obeyed, he asked him if he believed 
in the Father, the only-begotten Son, and the Holy 
Spirit. And when he confessed that he believed, 
" Believing," said he, " in their names, Arise." And 
when the man had risen, he bade him carry away his 
chief (who was a very large man) on his shoulders to 
his tent. He took him up, and went away forthwith ; 
while those who were present raised their voices in 
praise of God. This he commanded, imitating the 
Lord, who bade the paralytic carry his bed. Let no 
man call this imitation tyranny. For his saying is, 
" He who believeth in me, the works which I do, he 
shall do also, and more than these shall he do." And, 
indeed, we have seen the fulfilment of this promise. 
For though the shadow of the Lord never worked a 
miracle, the shadow of the great Peter both loosed 
death, and drove out diseases, and put daemons to 
flight. But the Lord it was who did also these mira- 
cles by his servants ; and now likewise, using his 
name, the divine Simeon works his innumerable won- 
ders. 

It befell also that another wonder was worked, by 
no means inferior to the last. For among those who 
had believed in the saving name of the Lord Christ, 
an Ishmaelite, of no humble rank, had made a vow to 



THE HERMITS. 



187 



God, with Simeon as witness. Now his promise was 
this, that he would henceforth to the end abstain from 
animal food. Transgressing this promise once, I know 
not how, he slew a bird, and dared to eat it. But Gocl 
being minded to bring him by reproof to conversion, 
and to honor his servant, who was a witness to the 
broken vow, the flesh of the bird was 'changed into 
the nature of a stone, so that, even if he wished, he 
could not thenceforth eat it. For how could he, when 
the body meant for food had turned to stone ? The 
barbarian, stupified by this unexpected sight, came 
with great haste to the holy man, bringing to the light 
the sin which he had hidden, and proclaimed his 
transgression to all, begging pardon from God, and in- 
voking the help of the saint, that by his all-powerful 
prayers, he might loose him from the bonds of his 
sin. Now many saw that miracle, and felt that the 
part of the bird about the breast consisted of bone 
and stone. 

But I was not only an ear-witness of his wonders, 
but also an ear-witness of his prophecies concerning 
futurity. For that drought which came, and the great 
dearth of that year, and the famine and pestilence 
which followed together, he foretold two years before, 
saying that he saw a rod which was laid on man, 
stripes which would be inflicted by it. Moreover, he 
at another time foretold an invasion of locusts, and 
that it would bring no great harm, because the divine 
clemency soon follows punishment. But when thirty 
days were past, an innumerable multitude of them 
hung aloft, so that they even cut off the sun's rays 



1 83 THE HER Mil 6. 

and threw a shadow ; and that we all saw plainly: but 
it only damaged the cattle pastures, and in no wise 
hurt the food of man. To me, too, who was attacked 
by a certain person, he signified that the quarrel 
would end ere a fortnight was past ; and I learned the 
truth of the prediction by experience. 

Moreover there were seen by him once two rods, 
which came down from the skies, and fell on the 
eastern and western lands. Now the divine man 
said that they signified the rising of the Persian and 
Scythian nations against the Romans ; and told the 
vision to those who were by, and with many tears 
and assiduous prayers, warded that disaster, the 
threat whereof hung over the earth. Certainly the 
Persian nation, when already armed and prepared to 
invade the Romans, was kept back (the divine will 
being against them) from their attempt, and occupied 
at home with their own troubles. But while I know 
many other cases of this kind, I shall pass them over 
to avoid prolixity. These are surely enough to show 
the spiritual contemplation of his mind. 

His fame was great, also, with the King of the 
Persians ; for as the ambassadors told, who came to 
him, he diligently inquired what was his life, and what 
his miracles. But they say that the King's wife also 
begged oil honored by his blessing, and accepted it 
as the greatest of gifts. Moreover, all the King's, 
courtiers, being moved by his fame, and having heard 
many slanders against him from the Magi, inquired 
diligently, and having learnt the truth, called him a 
divine man ; while the rest of the crowd, coming to 



THE HERMITS. 



i8g 



the muleteers and servants and soldiers, both offered 
money, and begged for a share in the oil of benediction. 

The Queen, too, of the Ishmaelites, longing to 
have a child, sent first some of her most noble sub- 
jects to the saint, beseeching him that she might be- 
come a mother. And when her prayer had been 
granted, and she had her heart's desire, she took the 
son who had been born, and went to the divine old 
man ; and (because women were not allowed to ap- 
proach him) sent the babe, entreating his blessing on 
it. , . . [Here Theodoret puts into the Queen's 
mouth words which it is unnecessary to quote.] 

But how long do I strive to measure the depths 
of the Atlantic sea ? For as they are unfathomable 
by man, so do the things which he does daily surpass 
narration. I, however, admire above all these things 
his endurance ; for night and day he stands, so as to 
be seen by all. For as the doors are taken away, and 
a large part of the wall around pulled down, he is set 
forth as a new and wondrous spectacle to all ; now 
standing long, now bowing himself frequently, and 
offering adoration to God. Many of those who stand 
by count these adorations ; and once a man with me, 
when he had counted 1,244, an d then missed, gave up 
counting: but always, when he bows himself, he 
touches his feet with his forehead. For as his stomach 
takes food only once in the week, and that very little 
— no more than is received in the divine sacraments, 

— his back admits of being easily bent But 

nothing which happens to him overpowers his philos- 



igo 



THE HERMITS. 



ophy ; he bears nobly both voluntary and involuntary 
pains, and conquers both by readiness of will. 

There came once from Arabena a certain good 
man, and honored with the ministry of Christ. He, 
when he had come to that mountain peak. " Tell 
me," he cried, " by the very truth which converts the 
human race to itself — Art thou a man, or an incor- 
poreal nature ? " But when all there were displeased 
with the question, the saint bade them all be silent, 
and said to him, " Why hast thou asked me this ? " 
He answered, " Because I hear every one saying pub 
licly, that thou neither eatest nor slecpest ; but both 
are properties of man, and no one who has a human 
nature could have lived without food and sleep." 
Then the saint bade them set a ladder to the column, 
and rfira to come up; and first to look at his hands, 
and then feel inside his cloak of skins ; and to see 
not only his feet, but a severe wound. But when he 
saw that he was a man, and the size of that wound, 
and learnt from him how he took nourishment, he 
came down and told me all. 

At the public festivals he showed an endurance 
of another kind. For from the setting of the sun till 
it had come again to the eastern horizon, he stood all 
night with hands uplift to heaven, neither soothed 
with sleep nor conquered by fatigue. But in toils 
so great, and so great a magnitude of deeds, and 
multitude of miracles, his self-esteem is as moderate 
as it he were in dignity the least of all men. Beside 
his modesty, he is easy of access of speech, and 
gracious, and answers every man who speaks to him, 



THE HERMITS. 



191 



whether he be handicraftsman, beggar, or rustic. And 
from the bounteous God he has received also the gift 
of teaching, and making his exhortations twice a day, 
he delights the ears of those who hear, discoursing 
much on grace, and setting forth the instructions of 
the Divine Spirit to look up and fly toward heaven, 
and depart from the earth, and imagine the kingdom 
which is expected, and fear the threats of Gehenna, 
and despise earthly things, and wait for things to 
come. He may be seen, too, acting as judge, and giv- 
ing right and just decisions. This, and the like, is 
done after the ninth hour. For all night, and through 
the day to the ninth hour, he prays perpetually. 
After that, he first sets forth the divine teaching to 
those who are present ; then having heard each man's 
petition, after he has performed some cures, he settles 
the quarrels of those between whom there is any dis- 
pute. About sunset he begins the rest of his con- 
verse with God. But though he is employed in this 
way, and does all this, he does not give up the care of 
the holy Churches, sometimes fighting with the impiety 
of the Greeks, sometimes checking the audacity of 
the Jews, sometimes putting to flight the bands of 
heretics, and sometimes sending messages concerning 
these last to the emperor ; sometimes, too, stirring 
up rulers to zeal for God, and sometimes exhorting the 
pastors of the Churches to bestow more care upon 
their flocks. 

I have gone through these facts, trying to show 
the shower by one drop, and to give those who meet 
with my writing a taste on the finger of the sweet. 



IQ2 



THE HERMITS. 



ness of the honey. But there remains (as is to be 
expected) much more ; and if he should live longer, 
he will probably add still greater wonders. . . . 

Thus far Theodoret. Antony gives some other 
details of Simeon's life upon the column. 

The devil, he says, in envy transformed himself 
into the likeness of an angel, shining in splendor, 
with fiery horses, and a fiery chariot, and appeared 
close to the column on which the blessed Simeon 
stood, and shone with glory like an angel. And 
the devil said with bland speeches, " Simeon, hear 
my words, which the Lord hath commanded thee. 
He has sent me, his angel, with a chariot and 
horses of fire, that I may carry thee away, as I 
carried Elias. For thy time is come. Do thou, in 
likewise, ascend now with me into the chariot, be- 
cause the Lord of heaven and earth has sent it down. 
Let us ascend together into the heavens, that the 
angels and archangels may see thee, with Mary the 
mother of the Lord, with the Apostles and martyrs, 
the confessors and prophets ; because they rejoice to 
see thee, that thou mayest pray to the Lord, who 
hast made thee after his own image. Verily I have 
spoken to thee : delay not to ascend." Simeon, having 
ended his prayer, said, " Lord, wilt thou carry me, a 
sinner, into heaven ? " And lifting his right foot that 
he might step into the chariot, he lifted also his right 
hand, and made the sign of Christ. When he had 
made the sign of the Cross, forthwith the devil ap- 
peared nowhere, but vanished with his device, as dust 



THE HERMITS. I93 

before the face of the wind. Then understood Simeon 
that it was an art of the devil. 

Having recovered himself, therefore, he said to hi s 
foot, " Thou shalt not return back hence, but stand 
here until my death, when the Lord shall send for me 
a sinner." 

[ Here follow more painful stories, which had best 
be omitted. ] 

But after much time, his mother, hearing of his 
fame, came to see him, but was forbidden, because no 
woman entered that place. But when the blessed 
Simeon heard the voice of his mother, he said to her, 
" Bear up, my mother, a little while, and we shall see 
each other, if God will." But she, hearing this, began 
to weep, and tearing her hair, rebuked him, saying, 
"Son, why hast thou done this ? In return for the 
body in which I bore thee, thou hast filled me full of 
grief. For the milk with which I nourished thee, 
thou hast given me tears. For the kiss with which I 
kissed thee, thou hast given me bitter pangs of heart. 
For the grief and labor which I have suffered, thou 
hast laid on me cruel stripes." And she spoke so 
much that she made us all weep. The blessed 
Simeon, hearing the voice of her who bore him, 
put his face in his hands and wept bitterly ; and com- 
manded her, saying, "Lady mother, be still a little 
time, and we shall see each other in eternal rest." 
But she began to say, " By Christ who formed thee, 
if there is a probability of seeing thee, who hast been 
so long a stranger to me, let me see thee ; or if not, 
let me only hear thy voice and die at once ; for thy 
13 



94 



THE HERMITS. 



father is dead in sorrow because of thee. And now 
do not destroy me for very bitterness, my son." 
Saying this, for sorrow and weeping she fell asleep ; 
for during three days and three nights she had not 
ceased entreating him. Then the blessed Simeon 
prayed the Lord for her, and she forthwith gave up 
the ghost. 

But they took up her body, and brought it where 
he could see it. And he said, weeping, " The Lord 
receive thee in joy, because thou hast endured tribula 
tion for me, and borne me, and nursed and nourished 
me with labor." And as he said that, his mother's 
countenance perspired, and her body was stirred in 
the sight of us all. But he, lifting up his eyes to 
heaven, said, "Lord God of virtues, who sittest above 
the cherubim, and searchest the foundations of the 
abyss, who knewest Adam before he was ; who hast 
promised the riches of the kingdom of heaven to 
those who love thee ; who didst speak to Moses in 
the bush of fire ; who blessedst Abraham our father ; 
who bringest into Paradise the souls of the just, 
and sinkest the souls of the impious to perdition ; 
who didst humble the lions, and mitigate for thy 
servants the strong fires of the Chaldees ; who didst 
nourish Elisha by the ravens which brought him food 
— receive her soul in peace, and put her in the place 
of the holy fathers, for thine is the power for ever 
and ever." 

An tony then goes on to relate the later years of 
the saint's life. 



THE HERMITS. 



J 95 



He tells how Simeon, some time after this, ascend- 
ed the column of forty cubits ; how a great dragon 
(serpent) crawled towards it, and coiled round it, 
entreating (so it seemed) to be freed from a spike of 
wood which had entered its eye \ and how, St. Simeon 
took pity on it, he caused the spike (which was a cubi* 
long) to come out. 

He tells how a woman, drinking water from a jar 
at night, swallowed a snake unawares, which grew 
within her, till she was brought to the blessed Simeon, 
who commanded some of the water of the monastery 
to be given her ; on which the serpent crawled out of 
her mouth, three cubits long, and burst immediately ', 
and was hung up there seven days, as a testimony to 
many. 

He tells how, when there was great want of water, 
St. Simeon prayed till the earth opened on the east 
of the monastery, and a cave full of water was dis- 
covered, which had never failed them to that day 

He tells how men, sitting beneath a tree, on their 
way to the saint, saw a doe go by, and commanded 
her to stop, " by the prayers of St. Simeon ; " which 
when she had done, they killed and ate her, and came 
to St. Simeon with the skin. But they were all struck 
dumb, and hardly cured after two years. And the 
skin of the doe they hung up, for a testimony to 
many. 

He tells of a huge leopard, which slew men and 
cattle all around ; and how St. Simeon bade sprinkle 
in his haunts soil or water from the monastery ; and 
when men went again, they found the leopard dead. 



196 



THE HERMITS. 



He tells how, when St. Simeon cured any one he 
bade him go home, and honor God who had healed 
him, and not dare to say that Simeon had cured him, 
lest a worse thing should suddenly come to him ; and 
not to presume to swear by the name of the Lord, for 
it was a grave sin ; but to swear, " whether justly or 
unjustly, by him, lowly and a sinner. Wherefore all 
the Easterns, and barbarous tribes in those regions, 
swear by Simeon." 

He tells how a robber from Antioch, Jonathan by 
name, fled to St. Simeon, and embraced the column, 
weeping bitterly, and saying how he had committed 
every crime, and had come thither to repent. And 
how the saint said, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven : 
but do not try to tempt me, lest thou be found again 
in the sins which thou hast cast away." Then came 
the officials from Antioch, demanding that he should 
be given up, to be cast to the wild beasts. But Simeon 
answered, " My sons, I brought him not hither, but 
One greater than I ; for he helps such as this man, 
and of such is the kingdom of heaven. But if you 
can enter, carry him hence ; I cannot give him up, for 
I fear him who has sent the man to me." And they, 
struck with fear, went away. Then Jonathan lay for 
seven days embracing the column, and then asked 
the saint leave to go. The saint asked him if he 
were going back to sin ? " No lord," he said ; " but 
my time is fulfilled," and straightway he gave up the 
ghost ; and when officials came again from Antioch, 
demanding him, Simeon replied : " He who brought 
him came with a multitude of the heavenly host, and 



THE HERMITS. 



197 



is able to send into Tartarus your city, and all who 
dwell in it, who also has reconciled this man to 
himself ; and I was afraid lest he should slay me sud- 
denly. Therefore weary me no more, a humble man 
and poor." 

But after a few years (says Antony) it befell one 
day that he bowed himself in prayer, and remained 
so three days — that is, the Friday, the Sabbath, and 
the Lord's day. Then I was terrified, and went up 
to him, and stood before his face, and said to him, 
" Master, arise : bless us ; for the people have been 
waiting three days and three nights for a blessing 
from thee." And he answered me not ; and I said 
again to him : " Wherefore dost thou grieve me, lord ? 
or in what have I offended ? I beseech thee, put out 
thy hand to me ; or, perchance, thou hast already de- 
parted from us ? " 

And seeing that he did not answer, I thought to 
tell no one ; for I feared to touch him : and, standing 
about half an hour, I bent down, and put my ear to 
listen ; and there was no breathing : but a fragrance as 
of many scents rose from his body. And so I under- 
stood that he rested in the Lord ; and, turning faint, 
I wept most bitterly ; and, bending down, kissed his 
eyes, and clasped his beard and hair, and reproaching 
him, I said : " To whom dost thou leave me, lord ? or 
where shall I seek thy angelic doctrine ? What answer 
shall I make for thee ? or whose soul will look at this 
column, without thee, and not grieve ? What answer 
shall I make to the sick, when they come here to seek 
thee, and find thee not ? What shall I say, poor 



l 9 8 THE HERMITS. 

creature that I am ? To-day I see thee ; to-morrow 
I shall look right and left, and not find thee. And what 
covering shall I put upon thy column ? Woe to me, 
when folk shall come from afar, seeking thee, and 
shall not find thee ! " And, for much sorrow, I fell 
asleep. 

And forthwith he appeared to me, and said : " I 
will not leave this column, nor this place, and this 
blessed mountain, where I was illuminated. But go 
down, satisfy the people, and send word secretly to 
Antioch, lest a tumult arise. For I have gone to rest, 
as the Lord willed : but do thou not cease to minister 
in this place, and the Lord shall repay thee thy wages 
in heaven.'' 

But rising from sleep, I said, in terror, " Master, 
remember me in thy holy rest." And, lifting up his 
garments, I fell at his feet, and kissed them ; and, 
holding his hands, I laid them on my eyes, saying, 
" Bless me, I beseech thee, my lord ! " And again I 
wept, and said, " What relics shall I carry away from 
thee as memorials ? " And, as I said that, his body 
was moved ; therefore I was afraid to touch him. 

And that no one might know, I came down quickly, 
and sent a faithful brother to the bishop at Antioch. 
He came at once with three bishops, and with them 
Ardaburius, the master of the soldiers, with his peo- 
ple and stretched curtains round the column, and fas- 
tened their clothes around it. For they were cloth of 
gold. 

And when they laid him down by the altar before 
the column, and gathered themselves together, birds 



THE HERMITS. 



199 



flew round the column, crying, and as it were lament- 
ing, in all men's sight ; and the wailing of the people 
and of the cattle resounded for seven miles away ; 
yea, even the hills, and the fields, and the trees were 
sad around that place ; for everywhere a dark cloud 
hung about it. And I watched an angel coming to 
visit him ; and, about the seventh hour, seven old men 
talked with that angel, whose face was like lightning,, 
and his garments as snow. And I watched his voice,, 
in fear and trembling, as long as I could hear it ; but 
what he said I cannot tell. 

But when the holy Simeon lay upon the bier, the. 
Pope of Antioch, wishing to take some of his beard 
for a blessing, stretched out his hand ; and forthwith 
it was dried up ; and prayers were made to God for 
him, and so his hand was restored again. 

Then, laying the corpse on the bier, they took it 
to Antioch, with psalms and hymns. But all the peo- 
ple round that region wept, because the protection of 
such mighty relics was taken from them, and because 
the Bishop of Antioch had sworn that no man should 
touch his body. 

But when they came to the fifth milestone from 
Antioch, to the village which is called Meroe, no one 
could move him. Then a certain man, deaf and dumb 
for forty years, who had committed a very great crime, 
suddenly fell down before the bier, and began to cry, 
" Thou art well come, servant of God ; for thy com- 
ing will save me : and if I shall obtain the grace to 
live, I will serve thee all the days of my life." And, 
rising, he caught hold of one of the mules which car 



300 THE HERMITS. 

ried the bier, and forthwith moved himself from that 
place. And so the man was made whole from that 
hour. 

Then all going out of the city of Antioch received 
the body of the holy Simeon on gold and silver, with 
psalms and hymns, and with many lamps brought it 
into the greater church, and thence to another church, 
which is called Penitence. Moreover, many virtues 
are wrought at his tomb, more than in his life ; and the 
man who was made whole served there till the day of 
his death. But many offered treasures to the Bishop 
of Antioch for the faith, begging relics from the body : 
but, on account of his oath, he never gave them. 

I, Antony, lowly and a sinner, have set forth briefly, 
as far as I could, this lesson. But blessed is he who 
has this writing in a book, and reads it in the church 
and house of God ; and when he shall have brought 
it to his memory, he shall receive a reward from the 
Most High ; to whom is honor, power, and virtue, 
for ever and ever. Amen. 

After such a fantastic story as this of Simeon, it is 
full time (some readers may have thought that it was 
full time long since) to give my own opinion of the 
miracles, visions, daemons, and other portents which 
occur in the lives of these saints. I have refrained 
from doing so as yet, because I wished to begin by 
saying everything on behalf of these old hermits which 
could honestly be said, and to prejudice my readers' 
minds in their favor rather than against them ; 
because I am certain that if we look on them merely 



THE HERMITS. 201 

with scorn and ridicule, — if we do not acknowledge 
and honor all in them which was noble, virtuous, 
and honest, — we shall never be able to combat their 
errors, either in our own hearts or in those of our 
children : and that we may have need to do so is but 
too probable. In this age, as in every other age of 
materialism and practical atheism, a revulsion in favor 
of supersition is at hand ; I may say is taking place 
round us now. Doctrines are tolerated as possibly 
true, — persons are regarded with respect and admira- 
tion, who would have been looked on, even fifty years 
ago, if not with horror, yet with contempt, as beneath 
the serious notice of educated English people. But 
it is this very contempt which has brought about the 
change of opinion concerning them. It has been dis- 
covered that they were not altogether so absurd as 
they seemed ; that the public mind, in its ignorance, 
has been unjust to them ; and, in hasty repentance for 
that injustice, too many are ready to listen to those 
who will tell them that these things are not absurd at 
all — that there is no absurdity in believing that the 
leg-bone of St. Simon Stock may possess miraculous 
powers, or that the spirits of the departed communi- 
cate with their friends by rapping on the table. The 
ugly after-crop of superstition which is growing up 
among us now is the just and natural punishment of 
our materialism — I may say, of our practical atheism. 
For those who will not believe in the real spiritual 
world, in which each man's soul stands face to face 
all day long with Almighty God, the Father, the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost, are sure at last to crave after 



202 THE HERMITS. 

some false spiritual world, and seek, like the evil and 
profligate generation of the Jews, after visible signs 
and material wonders. And those who will not 
believe that the one true and living God is above 
their path and about their bed and spieth out all 
their ways, and that in him they live and move and 
have their being, are but too likely at last to people 
with fancied saints and daemons that void in the 
imagination and in the heart which their own unbelief 
has made. 

Are we then to suppose that these old hermits had 
lost faith in God ? On the contrary, they were the 
only men in that day who had faith in God. And, if 
they had faith in any other things or persons beside 
God, they merely shared in the general popular 
ignorance and mistakes of their own age ; and we 
must not judge those who, born in an age of darkness, 
were struggling earnestly toward the light, as we 
judge those who, born in an age of scientific light, are 
retiring of their own will back into the darkness. 

Before I enter upon the credibility of these alleged 
saints' miracles, I must guard my readers carefully 
from supposing that I think miracles impossible. 
Heaven forbid. He would be a very rash person 
who should do that, in a world which swarms with 
greater wonders than those recorded in the biography 
of a saint. For, after all, which is more wonderful, 
that God should be able to restore the dead to life, or 
that he should be able to give life at all ? Again, as 
for these miracles being contrary to our experience, 
that is no very valid argument against them ; for 



THE HERMITS. 2 oj 

equally contrary to our experience is every new 
discovery of science, every strange phenomenon 
among plants and animals, every new experiment in 
a chemical lecture. 

The more we know of science the more we must 
confess, that nothing is too strange to be true : and 
therefore we must not blame or laugh at those who 
in old times believed in strange things which were 
not true. They had an honest and rational sense of 
the infinite and wonderful nature of the universe, and 
of their own ignorance about it ; and they were ready 
to believe anything, as the truly wise man will be 
ready also. Only, from ignorance of the laws of the 
universe, they did not know what was likely to be 
true and what was not ; and therefore they believed 
many things which experience has proved to be false ; 
just as Seba or any of the early naturalists were ready 
to believe in six-legged dragons, or in the fatal power 
of the basilisk's eye ; fancies which, if they had been 
facts, would not have been nearly as wonderful as the 
transformation of the commonest insect, or the fertil- 
ization of the meanest weed : but which are rejected 
now, not because they are too wonderful, but simply 
because experience has proved them to be untrue. 
And experience, it must be remembered, is the only 
sound test of truth. As long as men will settle be- 
forehand for themselves, without experience, what 
they ought to see, so long will they be perpetually 
fancying that they or others have seen it ; and their 
faith, as it is falsely called, will delude not only their 
reason, but their very hearing, sight, and touch. 



?04 THE HERMITS. 

In this age we see no supernatural prodigies, 
because there are none to see; and when we are 
told that the reason why we see no prodigies is 
because we have no faith, we answer (if we be 
sensible), Just so. As long as people had faith, 
in plain English believed, that they could be 
magically cured of a disease, they thought that they 
or others were so cured. As long as they believed 
that ghosts could be seen, every silly person saw 
them. As long as they believed that daemons 
transformed themselves into an animal's shape, they 
said, " The devil croaked at me this morning in 
the shape of a raven ; and therefore my horse fell 
with me." As long as they believed that witches 
could curse them, they believed that an old woman in 
the next parish had overlooked them, their cattle, 
and their crops ; and that therefore they were poor, 
diseased, and unfortunate. These dreams, which 
were common among the peasants in remote districts 
five-and-twenty years ago, have, vanished, simply 
from the spread (by the grace of God, as I hold) of 
an inductive habit of mind ; of the habit of looking 
coolly, boldly, carefully, at facts ; till now, even 
among the most ignorant peasantry, the woman 
who says that she has seen a ghost is likely not to 
be complimented on her assertion. But it does not 
follow that that woman's grandmother, when she said 
that she saw a ghost, was a consciously dishonesl 
person ; on the contrary, so complex and contradictory 
is human nature, she would have been, probably, a 
person of more than average intellect and earnestness ; 



THE HERMITS. 



205 



and her instinct of the invisible and the infinite ( which 
is that which raises man above the brutes ) would have 
been, because misinformed, the honorable cause of 
her error. And thus we may believe of the good her- 
mits, of whom prodigies are recorded. 

As to the truth of the prodigies themselves, there 
are several ways of looking at them. 

First, we may neither believe nor disbelieve them ; 
but talk of them as "devout fairytales," religious 
romances, and allegories ; and so save ourselves the 
trouble of judging whether they were true. That is 
at least an easy and pleasant method ; very fashion- 
able in a careless, unbelieving age like this : but in 
following it we shall be somewhat cowardly ; for there 
is hardly any matter a clear judgment on which is 
more important just now than these same saints' 
miracles. 

Next, we may believe them utterly and all ; and 
that is also an easy and pleasant method. But if we 
follow it, we shall be forced to believe, among other 
facts, that St. Paphnutius was carried miraculously 
across a river, because he was too modest to undress 
himself and wade ; that St. Helenus rode a savage 
crocodile across a river, and then commanded it to 
die ; and that it died accordingly upon the spot ; and 
that St. Goar, entering the palace of the Archbishop 
of Treves, hung his cap on a sunbeam, mistaking it 
for a peg. And many other like things we shall be 
forced to believe, with which this book has no con- 
cern. 

Or, again, we may believe as much as we can, 



206 THE HERMITS. 

because we should like, if we could, to believe all. But 
as we have not — no man has as yet — any criterion 
by which we can judge how much of these stories we 
ought to believe and how much not, which actually 
happened and which did not, therefore we shall end 
( as not only the most earnest and pious, but the most 
clear and logical persons, who have taken up this view, 
have ended already ) by believing all : which is an 
end not to be desired. 

Or we may believe as few as possible of them, 
because we should like, if we could, to believe none. 
And this method, for the reason aforesaid ( namely, 
that there is no criterion by which we can settle what 
to believe and what not ), usually ends in believing 
none at all. 

This, of believing none at all, is the last method ; 
and this, I confess fairly, I am inclined to think is the 
right one ; and that these good hermits worked no 
real miracles and saw no real visions whatsoever. 

I confess that this is a very serious assertion. For 
there is as much evidence in favor of these hermits' 
miracles and visions as there is, with most men, of 
the existence of China ; and much more than there, 
with most men, is of the earth's going round the sun. 

But the truth is, that evidence, in most matters of 
importance, is worth very little. Very few people 
decide a question on its facts, but on their own preju- 
dices as to what they would like to have happened. 
Very few people are judges of evidence ; not even of 
their own eyes and ears. Very few persons, when 
they see a thing, know what they have seen, and what 



THE HERMITS. 



207 



not. They tell you quite honestly, not what they saw, 
but what they think they ought to have seen, or should 
like to have seen. It is a fact too often conveniently 
forgotten, that in every human crowd the majority will 
be more or less bad, or at least foolish ; the slaves of 
anger, spite, conceit, vanity, sordid hope, and sordid 
fear. But let them be as honest and as virtuous as 
they may, pleasure, terror, and the desire of seeming 
to have seen or heard more than their neighbors, and 
all about it, make them exaggerate. If you take apart 
five honest men, who all stood by and saw the same 
man do anything strange, offensive, or even exciting, 
no two of them will give you quite the same account 
of it. If you leave them together, while excited,, an 
hour before you question them, they will have com- 
pared notes and made up one story, which will con- 
tain all their mistakes combined ; and it will require 
the skill of a practised barrister to pick the grain of 
wheat out of the chaff. 

Moreover, when people are crowded together un- 
der any excitement, there is nothing which they will 
not make each other believe. They will make each 
other believe in spirit-rapping, table-turning, the mes- 
meric fluid, electro-biology ; that they saw the lion on 
Northumberland House wagging his tail ;* that witches 
have been seen riding in the air ; that the Jews had 
poisoned the wells ; that — but why go further into the 
sad catalogue of human absurdities, and the crimes 
which have followed them ? Everyone is ashamed 

* An authentic fact. 



208 TJIE HERMITS. 

of not seeing what everyone else sees, and persuades 
himself against his own eyesight for fear of seeming 
stupid or ill-conditioned ; and therefore in all evid- 
ence, the fewer witnesses, the more truth, because the 
evidence of ten men is worth more than that of a 
hundred together : and the evidence of a thousand 
men together is worth still less. 

Now, if people are savage and ignorant, diseased 
and poverty-stricken ; even if they are merely excited 
and credulous, and quite sure that something wonder- 
ful must happen, then they will be also quite certain 
that something wonderful has happened ; and their 
evidence will be worth nothing at all. 

Moreover, suppose that something really wonder- 
ful has happened ; suppose, for instance, that some 
nervous or paralytic person has been suddenly restored 
to strength by the command of a saint or of some other 
remarkable man. This is quite possible, I may say 
common ; and it is owing neither to physical nor to 
so-called spiritual causes, but simply to the power 
which a strong mind has over a weak one, to make it 
exert itself, and cure itself by its own will, though 
but for a time. 

When this good news comes to be told, and to pass 
from mouth to mouth, it ends of quite a different 
shape from that in which it began. It has been added 
to, taken from, twisted in every direction according to 
the fancy or the carelessness of each teller, till what 
really happened in the first case no one will be able 
to say ; * and this is, therefore, what actually happened, 

•If any one doubt this, let him try the game called Russian 



THE HERMITS. 



209 



in the case of these reported wonders. Moreover 
(and this is the most important consideration of all) 
for men to be fair judges of what really happens, they 
must have somewhat sound minds in somewhat sound 
bodies ; which no man can have (however honest and 
virtuous) who gives himself up, as did these old her- 
mits, to fasting and vigils. That continued sleepless- 
ness produces delusions, and at last actual madness, 
every physician knows ; and they know also, as many 
a poor sailor has known when starving on a wreck, 
and many a poor soldier in such a retreat as that of 
Napoleon from Moscow, that extreme hunger and 
thirst produce delusions also, very similar to (and 
caused much in the same way as) those produced by 
ardent spirits ; so that many a wretched creature ere 
now has been taken up for drunkenness, who has been 
simply starving to death. 

Whence it follows that these good hermits, by con- 
tinual fasts and vigils, must have put themselves (and 
their histories prove that they did put themselves) 
into a state of mental disease, in which their evidence 
was worth nothing ; a state in which the mind cannot 
distinguish between facts and dreams ; in which life 
itself is one dream ; in which (as in the case of mad- 
ness, or of a feverish child) the brain cannot distin- 
guish between the objects which are outside it and 
the imaginations which are inside it. And it is plain, 

Scandal," where a story, passed secretly from mouth to mouth, ends, 
utterly transformed, the original point being lost, a new point sub- 
stituted, original names and facts omitted, and utterly new ones 
inserted, etc., etc. ; an experiment which is ludicrous, or saddening 
according to the temper of the experimenter. 
14 



2io THE HERMITS. 

that the more earnest and pious, and therefore the 
more ascetic, one of these good men was, the more 
utterly would his brain be in a state of chronic dis- 
ease. God forbid that we should scorn them, there- 
fore, or think the worse of them in any way. They 
were animated by a truly noble purpose, the resolution 
to be good according to their light ; they carried out 
that purpose with heroical endurance, and they have 
their reward : but this we must say, if we be rational 
people, that on their method of holiness, the more 
holy any one of them was, the less trustworthy was 
his account of any matter whatsoever ; and that the 
hermit's peculiar temptations (quite unknown to the 
hundreds of unmarried persons who lead quiet and 
virtuous, because rational and healthy, lives) are to be 
attributed, not as they thought, to a daemon, but to a 
more or less unhealthy nervous system. 

It must be remembered, moreover, in justice to 
these old hermits, that they did not invent the belief 
that the air was full of daemons. All the Eastern 
nations had believed in Genii (Jinns), Fairies (Peris), 
and Devas, Divs, or devils. The Devas of the early 
Hindus were beneficent beings : to the eyes of the 
old Persians (in their hatred of idolatry and polytheism), 
they appeared evil beings, Divs, or Devils. And 
even so the genii and daemons of the Roman Empire 
became, in the eyes of the early Christians, wicked 
and cruel spirits. 

And they had their reasons, and on the whole sound 
ones, for so regarding them. The educated classes 
had given up any honest and literal worship of the 



THE HERMITS. 211 

old gods. They were trying to excuse themselves 
for their lingering half belief in them, by turning them 
into allegories, powers of nature, metaphysical ab- 
stractions, as did Porphyry and Iamblichus, Plotinus 
and Proclus, and the rest of the Neo-Platonist school 
of aristocratic philosophers and fine ladies : but the 
lower classes still, in every region, kept up their own 
local beliefs and worships, generally of the most foul 
and brutal kind. The animal worship of Egypt 
among the lower classes was sufficiently detestable 
in the time of Herodotus. It had certainly not im- 
proved in that of Juvenal and Persius ; and was still less 
likely to have improved afterwards. This is a subject 
so shocking that it can be only hinted at. But as a 
single instance — what wonder if the early hermits of 
Egypt looked on the crocodile as something diabolic, 
after seeing it, for generations untold, petted and wor- 
shipped in many a city, simply because it was the 
incarnate symbol of brute strength, cruelty, and 
cunning ? We must remember, also, that earlier gener- 
ations (the old Norsemen and Germans just as much 
as the old Egyptians) were wont to look on animals 
as more miraculous than we do ; as more akin, in 
many cases, to human beings ; as guided, not by a 
mere blind instinct, but by an intellect which was allied 
to, and often surpassed man's intellect. " The bear," 
said the old Norsemen, " had ten men's strength, and 
eleven men's wit ; " and in some such light must the 
old hermits have looked on the hyena, " bellua," the 
monster par excellence ; or on the crocodile, the hippo- 
potamus, and the poisonous snakes, which have been 



212 THE HERMITS. 

objects of terror and adoration in every country where 
they have been formidable. Whether the hyenas 
were daemons, or were merely sent by the daemons, 
St. Antony and St. Athanasius do not clearly define, 
for they did not know. It was enough for them 
that the beasts prowled at night in those desert cities, 
which were, according to the opinions, not only of 
the Easterns, but of the Romans, the special haunt of 
ghouls, witches, and all uncanny things. Their fiendish 
laughter — which, when heard even in a modern me- 
nagerie, excites and shakes most person's nerves — 
rang through hearts and brains which had no help or 
comfort, save in God alone. The beast tore up the 
dead from their graves ; devoured alike the belated 
child and the foulest offal ; and was in all things a 
type and incarnation of that which man ought not to 
be. Why should not he, so like the worst of men, 
have some bond or kindred with the evil beings who 
were not men ? Why should not the graceful and 
deadly cobra, the horrid cerastes, the huge throttling 
python, and even more, the loathly puff-adder, un- 
distinguishable from the gravel among which he lay 
coiled, till he leaped furiously and unswerving, as if 
shot from a bow, upon his prey — why should not 
they too be kindred to that evil power who had been, 
in the holiest and most ancient books, personified by 
the name of the Serpent ? Before we have a right to 
say that the hermits' view of these deadly animals 
was not the most rational, as well as the most natural, 
which they could possibly have taken up, we must 
put ourselves in their places ; and look at nature as 



THE HERMITS. 



213 



they had learnt to look at it, not from Scripture and 
Christianity, so much as from the immemorial tradi- 
tions of their heathen ancestors. 

If it be argued, that they ought to have been well 
enough acquainted with their beasts to be aware of 
their merely animal nature, the answer is — that they 
were probably not well acquainted with the beasts of 
the desert. They had never, perhaps, before their 
" conversion," left tbe narrow valley, well tilled and 
well inhabited, which holds the Nile. A climb from 
it into the barren mountains and deserts east and west 
was. a journey out of the world into chaos, and the 
region of the unknown and the horrible, which de- 
manded high courage from the unarmed and effemi- 
nate Egyptian, who knew not what monster he might 
meet ere sundown. Moreover, it is very probable 
that during these centuries of decadence, in Egypt, 
as in other parts of the Roman Empire, "the wild 
beasts of the field had increased " on the population, 
and were reappearing in the more cultivated grounds. 

But these old hermits appear perpetually in another, 
and a more humane, if not more human aspect, as 
the miraculous tamers of savage beasts. Those who 
wish to know all which can be alleged in favor of 
their having possessed such a power, should read M. de 
Montalembert's chapter, " Les moines et la Nature? * 
All that learning and eloquence can say in favor of 
the theory is said there ; and with a candor which 
demands from no man full belief of many beautiful 
but impossible stories, " travesties of historic verity," 

* Les Moines d'Occident, vol. ii. pp. 332 — 467. 



214 THE HERMITS. 

which have probably grown up from ever-varying 
tradition in the course of ages. M. de Montalembert 
himself points out a probable explanation of many of 
them : — An ingenious scholar of our times * (he says) 
has pointed out their true and legitimate origin — at 
least in Ancient Gaul. According to him, after the 
gradual disappearance of the Gallo-Roman popula 
tion, the oxen, the horses, the dogs had returned 
to the wild state ; and it was in the forest that the 
Breton missionaries had to seek these animals, to 
employ them anew for domestic use. The miracle 
was, to restore to man the command and the enjoy- 
ment of those creatures, which God had given him as 
instruments. 

This theory is probable enough, and will explain, 
doubtless, many stories. It may even explain those 
of tamed wolves, who may have been only feral dogs, 
i. e. dogs run wild. But it will not explain those in 
which (in Ireland as well as in Gaul) the stag appears 
as obeying the hermit's commands. The twelve huge 
stags who come out of the forest to draw the ploughs 
for St. Leonor and his monks, or those who drew to 
his grave the corpse of the Irish hermit Kellac, or 
those who came out of the forest to supply the place 
of St. Colodoc's cattle, which the seigneur had carried 
off in revenge for his having given sanctuary to a 
hunted deer, must have been wild from the beginning ; 
and many another tale must remain without any 
explanation whatsoever — save the simplest of all. 

* M. La Borderie, " Discours sur les Saints Bretons ; " a work 
which I have unfortunately not been able to consult. 



THE HERMITS. 



215 



Neither can any such theory apply to the marvels 
vouched for by St. Athanasius, St. Jerome, and 
other contemporaries, which " show us (to quote 
M. de Montalembert) the most ferocious animals at 
the feet of such men as Antony, Pachomius, Macarius, 
and Hilarion, and those who copied them. At every 
page one sees wild asses, crocodiles, hippopotami, 
hyenas, and above all, lions transformed into re- 
spectful companions and docile servants of these 
prodigies of sanctity ; and one concludes thence, not 
that these beasts had reasonable souls, but that God 
knew how to glorify those who devoted themselves 
to his glory, and thus show how all Nature obeyed 
man before he was excluded from Paradise by his 
disobedience." 

This is, on the whole, the cause which the con- 
temporary biographers assign for these wonders. The 
hermits were believed to have returned, by celibacy 
and penitence, to " the life of angels ; " to that state 
of perfect innocence which was attributed to our first 
parents in Eden : and therefore of them our Lord's 
words were true : " He that believeth in me, greater 
things than these (which I do) shall he do." 

But those who are of a different opinion will seek 
for different causes. They will, the more they know 
of these stories, admire often their gracefulness, often 
their pathos, often their deep moral significance; 
they will feel the general truth of M. de Montalem- 
bert' s words : " There is not one of them which does 
not honor and profit human nature, and which does 
not express a victory of weakness over force, and of 



2i6 THE HERMITS. 

good over evil." But if they look on physical facts 
as sacred things, as the voice of God revealed in the 
phenomena of matter, their first question will be, "Are 
they true ? 

Some of them must be denied utterly, like that of 
St. Helenus, riding and then slaying the crocodile. It 
did not happen. Abbot Ammon * did not make two 
dragons guard his cell against robbers. St. Gera- 
simus f did not set the lion, out of whose foot he had 
taken a thorn, to guard his ass ; and when the ass 
was stolen by an Arabian camel-driver, he did not 
(fancying that the lion had eaten the ass) make him 
carry water in the ass's stead. Neither did the lion 
when next he met the thief and the ass, bring them 
up, in his own justification, % to St. Gerasimus. St 
Costinian did not put a pack-saddle on a bear, and 
make him carry a great stone. A lioness did not 
bring her five blind whelps to a hermit, that he might 
give them sight. § And, though Sulpicius Severus 
says that he saw it with his own eyes, || it is hard to 
believe the latter part of the graceful story which he 
tells — of an old hermit whom he found dwelling alone 
twelve miles from the Nile, by a well of vast depth. 
One ox he had, whose whole work was to raise the 
water by a wheel. Around him was a garden of 
herbs, kept rich and green amid the burning sand, 
where neither seed nor root could live. The old man 
and the ox fed together on the produce of their com- 
mon toil ; but two miles off there was a single 

* Vitas Paerum, p. 753. t Ibid. p. 893. 

% Ibid. p. 539. § Ibid, p. 540. || Ibid, p. 532, 



THE HERMITS. 



217 



palm-tree, to which, after supper, the hermit takes his 
guests. Beneath the palm they find a lioness; but 
instead of attacking them, she moves " modestly " 
away at the old man's command, and sits down to 
wait for her share of dates. She feeds out of his 
hand, like a household animal, and goes her way, 
leaving her guests trembling, " and confessing how 
great was the virtue of the hermit's faith, and how 
great their own infirmity." 

This last story, which one would gladly believe, 
were it possible, I have inserted as one of those which 
hang on the verge of credibility. In the very next 
page, Sulpicius Severus tells a story quite credible, 
of a she-wolf, which he saw with his own eyes as 
tame as any dog. There can be no more reason to 
doubt that fact than to ascribe it to a miracle. We 
may even believe that the wolf, having gnawed to 
pieces the palm basket which the good old man was 
weaving, went off, knowing that she had done wrong, 
and after a week came back, begged pardon like a 
rational soul, and was caressed, and given a double 
share of bread. Many of these stories which tell of 
the taming of wild beasts may be true, and yet contain 
no miracle. They are very few in number, after all, in 
proportion to the number of monks ; they are to be 
counted at most by tens, while the monks are counted 
by tens of thousands. And among many great com- 
panies of monks, there may have been one individual, 
as there is, for instance, in many a country parish a 
bee-taker or a horse-tamer, of quiet temper and 
strong nerve, and quick and sympathetic intellect, 



2i8 THE HERMITS. 

whose power over animals is so extraordinary, as to 
be attributed by the superstitious and uneducated 
to some hereditary secret, or some fairy gift. Very 
powerful to attract wild animals must have been the 
good hermits' habit of sitting motionless for hours, 
till (as with St. Guthlac) the swallows sat and sang 
upon his knee ; and of moving slowly and gently at 
his work, till (as with St. Karilef, while he pruned his 
vines) the robin came and built in his hood as it hung 
upon a tree : very powerful his freedom from anger, 
and, yet more important, from fear, which always 
calls out rage in wild beasts, while a calm and bold 
front awes them : and most powerful of all, the 
kindliness of heart, the love of companionship, which 
brought the wild bison to feed by St. Karilefs 
side as he prayed upon the lawn ; and the hind to 
nourish St. Giles with her milk in the jungles of the 
Bouches du Rhone. There was no miracle; save the 
moral miracle that, in ages of cruelty and slaughter, 
these men had learned (surely by the inspiration of 
God) how — 

" He prayeth well who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast; 
He prayeth best who loveth best 
All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He made and loveth all." 

After all, let these old Lives of the Fathers 
tell their own tale. By their own merits let them 
stand or fall ; and stand they will in one sense : for 
whatsoever else they are not, this they are — the 
histories of good men. Their physical science and 



THE HERMITS. 



219 



their daemonology may have been on a par with 
those of the world around them ; but they possessed 
what the world did not possess, faith in the utterly 
good and self-sacrificing God, and an ideal of virtue 
and purity such as had never been seen since 
the first Whitsuntide. And they set themselves to 
realize that ideal with a simplicity, an energy, an 
endurance, which were altogether heroic. How far 
they were right in '■ giving up the world " depends 
entirely on what the world was then like, and whether 
there was any hope of reforming it. It was their 
opinion that there was no such hope ; and those who 
know best the facts which surrounded them, its 
utter frivolity, its utter viciousness, the deadness 
which had fallen on art, science, philosophy, human 
life, whether family, social, or political ; the preva- 
lence of slavery, in forms altogether hideous and 
unmentionable ; the insecurity of life and property, 
whether from military and fiscal tyranny, or from 
perpetual inroads of the so-called " Barbarians : " those, 
I say, who know these facts best will be most inclined 
to believe that the old hermits were wise in their gene- 
ration ; that the world was past salvation ; that it was 
not a wise or humane thing to marry and bring 
children into the world ; that in such a state of 
society, an honest and virtuous man could not exist, 
and that those who wished to remain honest and 
virtuous must flee into the desert, and be alone with 
God and their fellows. 

The question which had to be settled then and 
there, at that particular crisis of the human race, was 



220 THE HERMITS. 

not — Are certain wonders true or false ? but — Is man 
a mere mortal animal, or an immortal soul ? Is his 
flesh meant to serve his spirit, or his spirit his flesh ? 
Is pleasure, or virtue, the end and aim of his existence ? 
The hermits set themselves to. answer that question, 
not by arguing or writing about it, but by the only 
way in which any question can be settled — by experi- 
ment. They resolved to try whether their immortal 
souls could not grow better and better, while their 
mortal bodies were utterly neglected ; to make their 
flesh serve their spirit ; to make virtue their only end 
and aim ; and utterly to relinquish the very notion o* 
pleasure. To do this one thing, and nothing else, 
they devoted their lives ; and they succeeded. From 
their time it has been a received opinion, not merely 
among a few philosophers or a few Pharisees, but 
among the lowest, the poorest, the most ignorant, who 
have known aught of Christianity, that man is an im- 
mortal soul ; that the spirit, and not the flesh, ought 
to be master and guide ; that virtue is the highest 
good ; and that purity is a virtue, impurity a sin. 
These men were, it has been well said, the very fathers 
of purity. And if, in that and in other matters, they 
pushed their purpose to an extreme — if, by devoting 
themselves utterly to it alone, they suffered, not 
merely in wideness of mind or in power of judging 
evidence, but even in brain, till they became some of 
them at times insane from overwrought nerves — it is 
not for us to blame the soldier for the wounds which 
have crippled him, or the physician for the disease 
which he has caught himself while trying to heal 



THE HERMITS. 221 

others. Let us not speak ill of the bridge which 
carries us over, nor mock at those who did the work 
for us as seemed to them best, and perhaps in the 
only way in which it could be done in those evil days. 
As a matter of fact, through these men's teaching and 
example we have learnt what morality, purity, and 
Christianity we possess ; and if any answer that we 
have learnt them from the Scriptures, who but these 
men preserved the Scriptures to us ? Who taught us 
to look on them as sacred and inspired ? Who taught 
us - to apply them to our daily lives, and find 
comfort and teaching in every age, in words written 
ages ago by another race in a foreign land ? The 
Scriptures were the book, generally the only book, 
which they read and meditated, not merely from morn 
till night, but, as far as fainting nature would allow, 
from night to morn again ; and their method of 
interpreting them (as far as I can discover) differed 
in nothing from that common to all Christians now, 
save that they interpreted literally certain precepts of 
our Lord and of St. Paul which we consider to have 
applied only to the " temporary necessity " of a 
decayed, dying, and hopeless age such as that in 
which they lived. And therefore, because they knew 
the Scripture well, and learned in it lessons of true 
virtue and true philosophy, though unable to save civil- 
ization in the East, they were able at least to save it in 
the West. The European hermits, and the monastic 
communities which they originated, were indeed a seed 
of life, not merely to the conquered Roman popula- 
tion of Gaul or Spain or Britain, but to the heathen 



22 2 THE HERMITS. 

and Arian barbarians who conquered them. Among 
those fierce and armed savages, the unarmed hermits 
stood, strong only by justice, purity, and faith in God, 
defying the oppressor, succoring the oppressed, and 
awing and softening the new aristocracy of the middle 
age, which was founded on mere brute force and pride 
of race ; because the monk took his stand upon mere 
humanity ; because he told the wild conqueror, Goth 
or Sueve, Frank or Burgund, Saxon or Norseman, 
that all men were equal in the sight of God ; because 
he told them (to quote Athanasius's own words con- 
cerning Antony) that " virtue is not beyond human 
nature ;" that the highest moral excellence was possible 
to the most low-born and unlettered peasant whom 
they trampled under their horses' hoofs, if he were 
only renewed and sanctified by the Spirit of God. 
They accepted the lowest and commonest facts of 
that peasant's wretched life, they outdid him in help- 
lessness, loneliness, hunger, dirt, and slavery; and then 
said, " Among all these I can yet be a man of God, 
wise, virtuous, pure, free, and noble in the sight of 
God, though not in the sight of Caesars, counts, and 
knights." They went on, it is true, to glorify the 
means above the end; to consecrate childlessness, self- 
torture, dirt, ignorance, as if they were things pleasing 
to God and holy in themselves. But in spite of those 
errors they wrought throughout Europe a work which, 
as far as we can judge, could have been done in no 
other way ; done only by men who gave up all that 
makes life worth having for the sake of being good 
themselves and making others good. 



THE HERMITS, 223 



THE HERMITS OF EUROPE. 

Most readers will recollect what an important part 
in the old ballads and romances is played by the 
hermit. 

He stands up in strongest contrast to the knight. 
He fills up, as it were, by his gentleness and self- 
sacrifice, what is wanting in the manhood of the 
knight, the slave too often of his own fierceness and 
self-assertion. The hermit rebukes him when he sins, 
heals him when he is wounded, stays his hand in some 
mad murderous duel, such as was too common in 
days when any two armed horsemen meeting on road 
or lawn ran blindly at each other in the mere lust of 
fighting, as boars or stags might run. Sometimes he 
interferes to protect the oppressed serf ; sometimes to 
rescue the hunted deer which had taken sanctuary 
at his feet. Sometimes, again, his influence is that 
of intellectual superiority ; of worldly experience ; 
of the travelled man who has seen many lands and 
many nations. Sometimes, again, that of sympathy; 
for he has been a knight himself, and fought and 
sinned, and drank the cup of vanity and vexa- 



224 



THE HERMITS. 






tion of spirit, like the fierce warrior who kneels at 
his feet. 

All who have read (and all ought to have read) 
Spenser's Fairy Queen, must recollect his charming 
description of the hermit with whom Prince Arthur 
leaves Serena and the squire after they have been 
wounded by " the blatant beast " of Slander ; when — 

" Toward night they came unto a plain 
By which a little hermitage there lay 
Far from all neighbourhood, the which annoy it may. 

"And nigh thereto a little chapel stood, 
Which being all with ivy overspread 
Decked all the roof, and shadowing the rood, 
Seemed like a grove fair branched overhead; 
Therein the hermit which his life here led 
In straight observance of religious vow, 
Was wont his hours and holy things to bed ; 
And therein he likewise was praying now, 

When as these knights arrived, they wist not where nor how. 

" They stayed not there, but straightway in did pass : 
Who when the hermit present saw in place, 
From his devotions straight he troubled was ; 
Which breaking off, he toward them did pace 
With staid steps and grave beseeming grace : 
For well it seemed that whilom he had been 
Some goodly person, and of gentle race, 
That Could h)6 good to all, and well did ween 

How each to entertain with courtesy beseen. 



He thence them led into his hermitage, 
Letting their steeds to grave upon the green : 
Small was his house, and like a little cage, 
For his own term, yet inly neat and clean, 
Decked with green boughs, and flowers gay beseen 



THE HERMITS. 225 



Therein he them full fair did entertain, 
Not with such forged shews, as fitter been 
For courting fools that courtesies would feign, 
But with entire affection and appearance plain. 



How be that careful hermit did his best 
With many kinds of medicines meet to tame 
The poisonous humour that did most infest 
Their reakling wounds, and every day them duly dressed. 

" For he right well in leech's craft was seen ; 
And through the long experience of his days, 
Which had in many fortunes tossed been, 
And passed through many perilous assays : 
He knew the divers want of moral ways, 
And in the minds of men had great insight ; 
Which with sage counsel, when they went astray, 
He could inform and them reduce aright 
And all the passions heal which wound the weaker sprite. 

" For whilome he had been a doughty knight, 
As any one that lived in his days, 
And proved oft in many a perilous fight, 
In which he grace and glory won always, 
And in all battles bore away the bays : 
But being now attached with timely age, 
And weary of this world's unquiet ways, 
He took himself unto this hermitage, 
In which he lived alone like careless bird in cage." 

This picture is not poetry alone : it is history. 
Such men actually lived,, and such work they actually 
did from the southernmost point of Italy to the north- 
ernmost point of Scotland, during centuries in which 
there was no one else to do the work. The regular 
clergy could not have done it. Bishops and priests 
were entangled in the affairs of this world, striving to 
15 



22 6 THE HERMITS. 

be statesmen, striving to be landowners, striving to 
pass Church lands on from father to son, and to 
establish themselves as an hereditary caste of priests. 
The chaplain or house-priest who was to be found in 
every nobleman's, almost every knight's castle, was 
apt to become a mere upper servant, who said mass 
every morning in return for the good cheer which he 
got every evening, and fetched and carried at the bid- 
ding of his master and mistress. But the hermit who 
dwelt alone in the forest glen, occupied, like an old 
Hebrew prophet, a superior and an independent pos- 
ition, He needed nought from any man save the scrap 
of land which the lord was only too glad to allow him 
in return for his counsels and his prayers. And to him, 
as to a mysterious and supernatural personage, the 
lord went privately for advice in his quarrels with the 
neighboring barons, or with his own kin. To him 
the lady took her children when they were sick, to be 
healed, as she fancied, by his prayers and blessings ; or 
poured into his ears a hundred secret sorrows and 
anxieties which she dare not tell to her fierce lord, 
who hunted and fought the livelong day, and drank 
too much liquor every night. 

This class of men sprang up rapidly, by natural 
causes, and yet by a Divine necessity, as soon as the 
Western Empire was conquered by the German tribes; 
and those two young officers whom we saw turning 
monks at Treves, in the time of St. Augustine, may, 
if they lived to be old men, have given sage counsel 
again and again to fierce German knights and kinglets, 
who had dispossessed the rich and effeminate land- 



THE HERMITS. 



227 



owners of their estates, and sold them, their wives, and 
children, in gangs by the side of their own slaves. 
Only the Roman who had turned monk would probably 
escape that fearful ruin ; and he would remain behind, 
while the rest of his race was enslaved or swept away, 
as a seed of Christianity and of civilization, destined 
to grow and spread, and bring the wild conquerors in 
due time into the kingdom of God. 

For the first century or two after the invasion of the 
barbarians, the names of the hermits and saints are 
almost exclusively Latin. Their biographies repre- 
sent them in almost every case as born of noble 
Roman parents. As time goes on, German names 
appear, and at last entirely supersede the Latin ones ; 
showing that the conquering race had learned from 
the conquered to become hermits and monks like 
them. 



22 8 THE HERMITS. 



ST. SEVERINUS, THE APOSTLE OF NORI- 
CUM. 

Of all these saintly civilizers, St. Severinus of 
Vienna is perhaps the most interesting, and his story 
the most historically instructive * 

A common time, the middle of the fifth century, the 
province of Noricum (Austria, as we should now call 
it) was the very highway of invading barbarians, the 
centre of the human Maelstrom in which Huns, Ale- 
man ni, Rugi, and a dozen wild tribes more, wrestled 
up and down and round the starving and beleaguered 
towns of what had once been a happy and fertile 
province, each tribe striving to trample the other 
under foot, and to march southward over their corpses 
to plunder what was still left of the already plundered 
wealth of Italy and Rome. The difference of race, in 
tongue, and in manners, between the conquered and 
their conquerors, was made more painful by difference 
in creed. The conquering Germans and Huns were 

* It has been handed down, in most crabbed Latin, by his disciple, 
Eugippius ; it may be read at length in Pez, Scriptores Austriaearum 
Rernm. 



THE HERMITS. 



229 



either Arains or heathens. The conquered race 
(though probably of very mixed blood), who called 
themselves Romans, because they spoke Latin and 
lived under the Roman law, were orthodox Catholics ; 
and the miseries of religious persecution were too often 
added to the usual miseries of invasion. 

It was about the year 455-60. Attila, the great 
King of the Huns, who called himself — and who was — 
"the Scourge of God," was just dead. His empire 
had broken up. The whole centre of Europe was. in 
a state of anarchy and war ; and the hapless Romans 
along the Danube were in the last extremity of terror, 
not knowing by what fresh invader their crops would 
be swept off up to the very gates of the walled towers 
which were their only defence : when there appeared 
among them, coming out of the East,. a man of God. 

Who he was, he would not tell. His speech showed 
him to be an African Roman — a fellow-countryman 
of St. Augustine — probably from the neighborhood 
of Carthage. He had certainly at one time gone to 
some desert in the East, zealous to learn " the more 
perfect life." Severinus, he said, was his name ; a 
name which indicated high rank, as did the manners 
and the scholarship of him who bore it. But more 
than his name he would not tell. " If you take me 
for a runaway slave," he said smiling, " get ready 
money to redeem me with when my master demands 
me back." For he believed that they would have 
need of him ; that God had sent him into that land 
that he might be of use to its wretched people. And 
certainly he would have come into the neighborhood 



23 o THE HERMITS. 

of Vienna at that moment for no other purpose than 
to do good, unless he came to deal in slaves. 

He settled first at a town called by his biographer 
Casturis ; and, lodging with the warden of the church, 
lived quietly the hermit life. Meanwhile the German 
tribes were prowling round the town : and Severinus, 
going one day into the church, began to warn the 
priests and clergy and all the people that a destruc- 
tion was coming on them which they could only avert 
by prayer and fasting and the works of mercy. They 
laughed him to scorn, confiding in their lofty Roman 
walls, which the invaders— wild horsemen, who had no 
military engines— were unable either to scale or batter 
down. Severinus left the town at once, prophesying, 
it was said, the very day and hour of its fall. He 
went on to the next town, which was then closely 
garrisoned by a barbarian force, and repeated his 
warning there : but while the people were listening to 
him, there came an old man to the gate, and told them 
how Casturis had been already sacked, as the man of 
God had foretold ; and, going into the church, threw 
himself at the feet of St. Severinus, and said that he 
had been saved by his merits from being destroyed 
with his fellow-townsmen. 

Then the dwellers in the town hearkened to the 
man of God, and gave themselves up to fasting and 
almsgiving and prayer for three whole days. 

And on the third day, when the solemnity of the 
evening sacrifice was fulfilled, a sudden earthquake 
happened, and the barbarians, seized with panic fear, 
and probably hating and dreading— like all thoi e 



THE HERMITS. 



231 



wild tribes — confinement between four stone walls 
instead of the free open life of the tent and the stock- 
ade, forced the Romans- to open their gates to them, 
rushed out into the night, and in their madness slew 
each other. 

In those days a famine fell upon the people of 
Vienna ; and they, as their sole remedy, thought good 
to send for the man of God from the neighboring 
town. He went, and preached to them, too, repent- 
ance and almsgiving. The rich, it seems, had hidden 
up their stores of corn, and left the poor to starve. 
At least St. Severinus discovered (by Divine revela- 
tion, it was supposed), that a widow named Procula 
had done as much. He called her out into the midst 
of the people, and asked her why she, a noble woman 
and free-born, had made herself a slave to avarice, 
which is idolatry. If she would not give her corn to 
Christ's poor, let her throw it into the Danube to 
feed the fish, for any gain from it she would not have. 
Procula was abashed, and served out her hoards there- 
upon willingly to the poor ; and a little while after- 
wards, to the astonishment of all, vessels came down 
the Danube, laden with every kind of merchandise. 
They had been frozen up for many days near Passau, 
in the thick ice of the river Enns : but the prayers 
of God's servant (so men believed) had opened the 
ice-gates, and let them down the stream before the 
usual time. 

Then the wild German horsemen swept around the 
walls, and carried off human beings and cattle, as 
many as they could find. Severinus, like some old 



232 



THE HERMITS. 



Hebrew prophet, did not shrink from advising hard 
blows, where hard blows could avail. Mamertinus, 
the tribune, or officer in command, told him that he 
had so few soldiers, and those so ill-armed, that he 
dare not face the enemy. Severinus answered, that 
they should get weapons from the barbarians them- 
selves ; the Lord would fight for them, and they 
should hold their peace : only if they took any cap- 
tives they should bring them safe to him. At the 
second milestone from the city they came upon the 
plunderers, who fled at once, leaving their arms 
behind. Thus was the prophecy of the man of God 
fulfilled. The Romans brought the captives back 
to him unharmed. He loosed their bonds, gave 
them food and drink, and let them go. But they 
were to tell their comrades that, if ever they came 
near th t spot again, celestial vengeance would fall 
on them, for the God of the Christians fought from 
heaven in his servants' cause. 

So the barbarians trembled, and went away. And 
the fear ot St Severinus fell on all the Goths, heretic 
Arians though they were ; and on the Rugii, who 
held the north bank of the Danube in those evil 
days. St. Severinus, meanwhile, went out of Vienna, 
and built himself a cell at a place called " At the 
Vineyards." But some benevolent impulse — Divine 
revelation, his biographer calls it — prompted him to 
return, and build himself a cell on a hill close to 
Vienna, round which other cells soon grew up, tenanted 
by his disciples. " There," says his biographer, "he 
longed to escape the crowds of men who were wont 



THE HERMITS. 



233 



to come to him, and cling closer to God in continual 
prayer : but the more he longed to dwell in solitude, 
the more often he was warned by revelations not to 
deny his presence to the afflicted people." He fasted 
continually ; he went barefoot even in the midst of 
winter, which was so severe, the story continues, in 
those days around Vienna, that wagons crossed the 
Danube on the solid ice : and yet, instead of being 
puffed-up by his own virtues, he set an example of 
humility to all, and bade them with tears to pray for 
him, that the Saviour's gifts, to him might not heap 
condemnation on his head. 

Over the wild Rugii St. Severinus seems to have 
acquired unbounded influence. Their king, Flacci- 
theus, used to pour out his sorrows to him, and tell 
him how the princes of the Goths would surely slay 
him ; for when he had asked leave of him to pass on 
into Italy, he would not let him go. But St. Sever- 
inus prophesied to him that the Goths would do him 
no harm. Only one warning he must take : " Let it 
not grieve him to ask peace even for the least of 
men." 

The friendship which had thus begun between the 
barbarian king and the cultivated saint was carried 
on by his son Feva : but his " deadly and noxious 
wife " Gisa, who appears to have been a fierce Arian, 
always, says his biographer, kept him back from 
clemency. One story of Gisa's misdeeds is so char- 
acteristic both of the manners of the time and of 
the style in which the original biography is written, 
that I shall take leave to insert it at length. 



234 



THE HERMITS 



" The King Feletheus (who is also Feva), the 
son of the afore-mentioned Flaccitheus, following his 
father's devotion, began, at the commencement of his 
reign, often to visit the holy man. His deadly and 
noxious wife, named Gisa, always kept him back 
from the remedies of clemency. For she, among the 
other plague-spots of her iniquity, even tried to have 
certain Catholics re-baptized : but when her husband 
did not consent, on account of his reverence for St. 
Severinus, she gave up immediately her sacrilegious 
intention, burdening the Romans, nevertheless, with 
hard conditions, and commanding some of them to 
be exiled to the Danube. For when one day, she, 
having come to the village next to Vienna, had ordered 
some of them to be sent over the Danube, and con- 
demned to the most menial offices of slavery, the 
man of God sent to her, and begged that they might 
be let go. But she, blazing up in a flame of fury, 
ordered the harshest of answers to be returned. ' I 
pray thee,' she said, ' servant of God, hiding there 
within thy cell, allow us to settle what we choose 
about our own slaves.' But the man of God hearing 
this, ' I trust,' he said, ' in my Lord Jesus Christ, 
that she will be forced by necessity to fulfil that 
which in her wicked will she has despised.' And 
forthwith a swift rebuke followed, and brought low 
the soul of the arrogant woman. For she had con- 
fined in close custody certain barbarian goldsmiths, 
that they might make regal ornaments. To them 
the son of the aforesaid king, Frederic by name, still 
a little boy, had gone in, in childish levity, on the 



THE HERMITS. 235 

very day on which the queen had despised the 
servant of God. The goldsmiths put a sword to the 
child's breast, saying, that if any one attempted to 
enter without giving them an oath that they should 
be protected, he should die ; and that they would 
slay the king's child first, and themselves afterwards, 
seeing that they had no hope of life left, being worn 
out with long prison. When she heard that, the 
cruel and impious queen, rending her garments for 
grief, cried out, ' O servant of God, Severinus, are 
the injuries which I did thee thus avenged ? Hast 
thou obtained by the earnest prayer thou hast poured 
out this punishment for my contempt, that thou 
shouldst avenge it on my own flesh and blood ? ' 
Then, running up and down with manifold contrition 
and miserable lamentation, she confessed that for the 
act of contempt which she had committed against 
the servant of God she was struck by the vengeance 
of the present blow ; and forthwith she sent knights 
to ask for forgiveness, and sent across the river the 
Romans his prayers for whom she had despised. 
The goldsmiths, having received immediately a 
promise of safety, and giving up the child, were in 
like manner let go. 

" The most reverend Severinus, when he heard 
this, gave boundless thanks to the Creator, who some- 
times puts off the prayers of suppliants for this end, 
that as faith, hope, and charity grow, while lessei 
things are sought, He may concede greater things. 
Lastly, this did the mercy of the Omnipotent Saviour 
work, that while it brought to slavery a woman free* 



>3« 



THE HERMITS. 



but cruel overmuch, she was forced to restore to 
liberty those who were enslaved. This having been 
marvellously gained, the queen hastened with her 
husband to the servant of God, and showed him her 
son, who, she confessed, had been freed from the 
verge of death by his prayers, and promised that she 
would never go against his commands." 

To this period of Severinus's life belongs the once 
famous story of his interview with Odoacer, the first 
barbarian king of Italy, and brother of the great 
Onulph or Wolf, who was the founder of the family 
of the Guelphs, Counts of Altorf, and the direct an- 
cestors of Victoria, Queen of England. Their father 
was iEdecon, secretary at one time of Attila, and chief 
of the little tribe of Turklings, who, though German, 
had clung faithfully to Attila's sons, and came to 
ruin at the great battle of Netad, when the empire 
of the Huns broke up once and for ever. Then 
Odoacer and his brother started over the Alps to 
seek their fortunes in Italy, and take service, after 
the fashion of young German adventurers, with the 
Romans ; and they came to St. Severinus's cell, and 
went in, heathens as they probably were, to ask a 
blessing of the holy man ; and Odoacer had to stoop 
and to stand stooping, so huge he was. The saint 
saw that he was no common lad, and said, " Go to 
Italy, clothed though thou be in ragged sheepskins : 
thou shal.t soon give greater gifts to thy friends." So 
Odoacer went on into Italy, deposed the last of the 
Caesars, a paltry boy, Romulus Augustulus by name, 
and found himself, to his own astonishment, and that 



THE HERMITS. 237 

of all the world, the first German king of Italy ; and, 
when he was at the height of his power, he remern 
bered the prophecy of Severinus, and sent to him, 
offering him any boon he chose to ask. But all that 
the saint asked was, that he should forgive some 
Romans whom he had banished. St. Severinus mean- 
while foresaw that Odoacer's kingdom would not last, 
as he seems to have foreseen many things, by no mi 
raculous revelation, but simply as a far-sighted man of 
the world. For when certain German knights were 
boasting before him of the power and glory of Odoacer 
he said that it would last some thirteen, or at most 
fourteen years ; and the prophecy (so all men said 
in those days) came exactly true. 

There is no need to follow the details of St. Sever, 
inus's labors through some five-and-twenty years of 
perpetual self-sacrifice — and, as far as this world was 
concerned, perpetual disaster. Eugippius's chapters 
are little save a catalogue of towns sacked one after 
the other, from Passau to Vienna, till the miserable 
survivors of the war seemed to have concentrated 
themselves under St. Severinus's guardianship in the 
latter city. We find, too, tales of famine, of locust- 
swarms, of little victories over the barbarians, which 
do not arrest wholesale defeat : but we find through 
all St. Severinus laboring like a true man of God, 
conciliating the invading chiefs, redeeming captives, 
procuring for the cities, which were still standing 
supplies of clothes for the fugitives, persuading the 
husbandmen, seemingly through large districts, to 
give even in time of dearth a tithe of their produce 



2 *S THE HERMITS 

I 

to the poor ; — a tale of noble work which one regrets 
to see defaced by silly little prodigies, more impor- 
tant seemingly in the eyes of the monk Eugippius 
than the great events which were passing round him. 
But this is a fault too common With monk chroniclers. 
The only historians of the early middle age, they have 
left us a miserably imperfect record of it, because they 
were looking always rather for the preternatural than 
for the natural. Many of the saints' lives, as they 
have come down to us, are mere catalogues of won- 
ders which never happened, from among which the 
antiquary must pick, out of passing hints and obscure 
allusions, the really important facts of the time, — 
changes political and social, geography, physical his- 
tory, the manners, speech, and look of nations now 
extinct, and even the characters and passions of the 
actors in the story. How much can be found among 
such a list of wonders, by an antiquary who has not 
merely learning but intellectual insight, is proved by 
the admirable notes which Dr. Reeves has appended 
to Adamnan's life of St. Columba : but one feels, 
while studying his work, that, had Adamnan thought 
more of facts and less of prodigies, he might have 
saved Dr. Reeves the greater part of his labor, and 
preserved to us a mass of knowledge now lost for 
ever. 

And so with Eugippius's life of St. Severinus. The 
reader finds how the man who had secretly cele- 
brated a heathen sacrifice was discovered by St. Sev- 
erinus, because, while the tapers of the rest of the 
congregation were lighted miraculously from heaven, 



THE HERMITS. 



'59 



his taper alone would not light ; and passes on im- 
patiently, with regret that the biography omits to 
mention what the heathen sacrifice was like. He reads 
how the Danube dared not rise above the mark of the 
cross which St. Severinus had cut upon the posts of a 
timber chapel ; how a poor man, going out to drive 
the locusts off his little patch of corn, instead of stay- 
ing in the church all day to pray, found the next 
morning that his crop alone had been eaten, while 
all the fields around remained untouched. Even the 
well-known story, which has a certain awfulness about 
it, how St. Severinus watched all night by the bier of 
the dead priest Silvinus, and ere the morning dawned 
bade him in the name of God speak to his brethren ; 
and how the dead man opened his eyes, and Severinus 
asked him whether he wished to return to life, and he 
answered complainingly, " Keep me no longer here ; 
nor cheat me of that perpetual rest which I had 
already found," and so, closing his eyes once more, 
was still for ever : — even such a story as this, were it 
true, would be of little value in comparison with the 
wisdom, faith, charity, sympathy, industry, utter self- 
sacrifice, which formed the true greatness of such a 
man as Severinus. 

At last the noble life wore itself out. For two 
years Severinus had foretold that his end was near ; 
and foretold, too, that the people for whom he had 
spent himself should go forth in safety, as Israel out 
of Egypt, and find a refuge in some other Roman 
province, leaving behind them so utter a solitude. 
that the barbarians, in their search for the hidden 



24-0 



THE HERMITS. 



treasures of the civilization which they had extermi- 
nated, should dig up the very graves of the dead. 
Only, when the Lord willed that people to deliver 
them, they must carry away his bones with them, as 
the children of Israel carried the bones of Joseph. 

Then Severinus sent for Feva, the Rugian king, and 
Gisa, his cruel wife ; and when he had warned them 
how they must render an account to God for the 
people committed to their charge, he stretched his 
hand out to the bosom of the king. "Gisa," he 
asked, "dost thou love most the soul within that 
breast, or gold and silver ? " She answered that she 
loved her husband above all. " Cease then," he said, 
" to oppress the innocent : lest their affliction be the 
ruin of your power." 

Severinus' presage was strangely fulfilled. Feva 
had handed over the city of Vienna to his brother 
Frederic, — "poor and impious," says Eugippius. 
Severinus, who knew him well, sent for him, and 
warned him that he himself was going to the Lord; 
and that if, after his death, Frederic dared touch 
aught of the substance of the poor and the captive, 
the wrath of God would fall on him. In vain the 
barbarian pretended indignant innocence ; Severinus 
sent him away with fresh warnings. 

" Then on the nones of January he was smitten 
slightly with a pain in the side. And when that 
had continued for three days, at midnight he bade 
the brethren come to him." He renewed his talk 
about the coming emigration, and entreated again 
that his bones might and he left behind ; and having 



THE HERMITS. 



241 



bidden all in. turn come near and kiss him ; and 
having received the sacrament of communion, he for- 
bade them to weep for him, and commanded them to 
sing a psalm. They hesitated, weeping. He himself 
gave out the psalm, " Praise the Lord in his saints, 
and let all that hath breath praise the Lord ; " and 
so went to rest in the Lord. 

No sooner was he dead than Frederic seized on 
the garments kept in the monastery for the use of 
the poor, and even commanded his men to carry 
off the vessels of the altar. Then followed a scene 
characteristic of the time. The steward sent to do 
the deed shrank from the crime of sacrilege. A 
knight, Anicianus by name, went in his stead, and 
took the vessels of the altar. But his conscience was 
too strong for him. Trembling and delirium fell on 
him, and he fled away to a lonely island, and became 
a hermit there. Frederic, impenitent, swept away 
all in the monastery, leaving nought but the bare 
walls, " which he could not carry over the Danube." 
But on him, too, vengeance fell. Within a month 
he was slain by his own nephew. Then Odoacer 
attacked the Rugii, and carried off Feva and Gisa 
captive to Rome. And then the long-promised 
emigration came. Odoacer, whether from mere policy 
(for he was trying to establish a half-Roman kingdom 
in Italy), or for love of St. Severinus himself, sent 
his brother Onulf to fetch away into Italy the 
miserable remnant of the Danubian provincials, to 
be distributed among the wasted and unpeopled 
farms of Italy. And with them went forth the corpse 
16 



242 THE HERMITS. 

of St. Severinus, undecayed, though he had been six 
years dead, and giving forth exceeding fragiance, 
though (says Eugippius) no embalmer's hand had 
touched it. In a coffin, which had been long pre- 
pared for it, it was laid on a wagon, and went over 
the Alps into Italy, working (according to Eugippius) 
the usual miracles on the way, till it found a resting- 
place near Naples, in that very villa of Lucullus at 
Misenum, to which Odoacer had sent the last 
Emperor of Rome to dream his ignoble life away 
in helpless luxury. 

So ends this tragic story. Of its substantial truth 
there can be no doubt. The miracles recorded in it 
are fewer and less strange than those of the average 
legends— as is usually the case when an eye-witness 
writes. And that Eugippius was an eye-witness of 
much which he tells, no one accustomed to judge of 
the authenticity of documents can doubt, if he studies 
the tale as it stands in Fez* As he studies, too, he 
will perhaps wish with me that some great dramatist 
may hereafter take Eugippius's quaint and rough 
legend, and shape it into immortal verse. For tragic, 
in the very highest sense the story is throughout. 
M. Ozanam has well said of that death-bed scene 
between the saint and the barbarian king and queen 

"The history of invasion has many a pathetic 

scene: but I know none more instructive than the 
dying agony of that old Roman expiring between 
two barbarians, and less touched with the ruin of 
the empire than with the peril of their souls." But 

* Scriptores Austriacarum Rerum. 



THE HERMITS. 



243 



even more instructive, and more tragic also, is the 
strange coincidence that the wonder-working corpse 
of the starved and barefooted hermit should rest 
beside the last Emperor of Rome. It is the symbol 
of a new era. The kings of this world have been 
judged and cast out. The empire of the flesh is to 
perish, and the empire of the spirit to conquer thence- 
forth for evermore. 

But if St. Severinus's labors in Austria were in 
vain, there were other hermits, in Gaul and elsewhere 
whose work endured and prospered, and developed to 
a size of which they had never dreamed. The stories 
of these good men may be read at length in the Bol- 
landists and Surius : in a more accessible and more 
graceful form, in M. de Montalembert's charming 
pages. I can only sketch, in a few words, the history 
of a few of the more famous. Pushing continually 
northward and westward from the shores of the Medi- 
terranean, fresh hermits settled in the mountains and 
forests, collected disciples round them, and founded 
monasteries, which, during the sanguinary and savage 
era of the Merovingian kings, were the only retreats 
for learning, piety, and civilization. St. Martin (the 
young soldier who may be seen in old pictures cutting 
his cloak in two with a sword, to share it with a 
beggar) left, after twenty campaigns, the army into 
which he had been enrolled against his will, a con- 
script of fifteen years old, to become a hermit, monk, 
and missionary. In the desert isle of Gallinaria, near 
Genoa, he lived on roots, to train himself for the 
monastic life ; and then went northwest, to Poitiers, 



*44 



THE HERMITS. 



to found Liguge (said to be the most ancient monas- 
tery in France), to become Bishop of Tours, and to 
overthrow throughout his diocese, often at the risk of 
his life, the sacred oaks and Druid stones of the Gauls, 
and the temples and idols of the Romans. But he — 
like many more — longed for the peace of the hermit's 
cell ; and near Tours, between the river Loire and 
lofty cliffs, he hid himself in a hut of branches, while 
his eighty disciples dwelt in caves of the rocks above, 
clothed only in skins of camels. He died in a.d. 397, 
at the age of eighty-one, leaving behind him, not 
merely that famous monastery of Marmontier (Mar- 
tini Monasterium), which endured till the Revolution 
of 1793, but, what is infinitely more to his glory, his 
solemn and indignant protest against the first perse- 
cution by the Catholic 'Church — the torture and ex- 
ecution of those unhappy Priscillianist fanatics, whom 
the Spanish bishops (the spiritual forefathers of the 
Inquisition) had condemned in the name of the God 
of love. Martin wept over the fate of the Priscilli- 
anists. Happily he was no prophet, or his head would 
have become (like Jeremiah's) a fount of tears, could 
he have foreseen that the isolated atrocity of those 
Spanish bishops would have become the example and 
the rule, legalized and formulized and commanded by 
pope after pope, for every country in Christendom. 

Sulpicius Severus, again (whose Lives of the Desert 
Fathers I have already quoted), carried the example 
of these fathers into his own estates in Aquitaine. 
Selling his lands, he dwelt among his now manu- 
mitted slaves, sleeping on straw, and feeding on the 



THE HERMITS. 



245 



coarsest bread and herbs ; till the hapless neophytes 
found that life was not so easily sustained in France 
as in Egypt ; and complained to him that it was in 
vain to try " to make them live like angels, when they 
were only Gauls." 

Another centre of piety and civilization was the 
rocky isle of Lerins, off the port of Toulon. Covered 
with the ruins of an ancient Roman city, and swarm- 
ing with serpents, it was colonized again, in a. d. 410, 
by a young man of rank named Honoratus, who 
gathered round him a crowd of disciples, converted 
the desert isle into a garden of flowers and herbs, and 
made the sea-girt sanctuary of Lerins one of the 
most important spots of the then world. 

"The West," says M. de Montalembert, "had 
thenceforth nothing to envy the East ; and soon that 
retreat, destined by its founder to renew on the shores 
of Provence the austerities of the Thebaid, became a 
celebrated school of Christian theology and philos- 
ophy, a citadel inaccessible to the waves of the 
barbarian invasion, an asylum for the letters and 
sciences which were fleeing from Italy, then overrun 
by the Goths ;. and, lastly, a nursery of bishops and 
saints, who spread through Gaul the knowledge of the 
Gospel and the glory of Lerins. We shall soon see 
the rays of his light flash even into Ireland and 
England, by the blessed hands of Patrick and 
Augustine." 

In the year 425, Romanuf, a young monk from 
the neighborhood of Lyons, had gone up into the 
forests of the Jura, carrying with him the " Lives 



246 THE HERMITS. 

of the Hermits," and a few seeds and tools ; and had 
settled beneath an enormous pine ; shut out from 
mankind by precipices, torrents, and the tangled 
trunks of primaeval trees, which had fallen and rotted 
on each other age after age. His brother Lupicnius 
joined him ; then crowds of disciples ; then his sister, 
and a multitude of women. The forests were cleared, 
the slopes planted ; a manufacture of box-wood 
articles — chairs among the rest — was begun ; and 
within the next fifty years the Abbey of Condat, 
or St. Claude, as it was afterwards called, had 
become, not merely an agricultural colony, or even 
merely a minster for the perpetual worship of God, 
but the first school of that part of Gaul ; in which 
the works of Greek as well as Latin orators were 
taught, not only to the young monks, but to young 
laymen likewise. 

Meanwhile the volcanic peaks of the Auvergne 
were hiding from their Arian invaders the ruined 
gentry of Central France. Effeminate and luxurious 
slaveholders, as they are painted by Sidonius Appoli- 
neris, bishop of Clermont, in the same Auvergne, 
nothing was left for them when their wealth was 
gone but to become monks : and monks they became. 
The lava grottoes held hermits, who saw visions and 
daemons, as St. Antony had seen them in Egypt ; 
while near Treves, on the Moselle, a young hermit 
named Wolflaich tried to imitate St. Simeon Stylites* 
penance on the pillar ; till his bishop, foreseeing that 
in that severe climate he would only kill himself, 
wheedled him away from his station, pulled down the 



THE HERMITS. 



247 



pillar in his absence, and bade him be a wiser man. 
Another figure, and a more interesting one, is the 
famous St. Goar ; a Gaul, seemingly (from the recorded 
names of his parents) of noble Roman blood, who 
took his station on the Rhine, under the cliffs of that 
Lurlei so famous in legend and ballad as haunted by- 
some fair fiend, whose treacherous song lured the 
boatmen into the whirlpool at their foot. To rescue 
the shipwrecked boatmen, to lodge, feed, and if need 
be clothe, the travellers along the Rhine bank, was 
St. Goar's especial work ; and Wandelbert, the monk 
of Prum, in the Eifel, who wrote his life at consider- 
able length, tells us how St. Goar was accused to the 
Archbishop of Treves as a hypocrite and a glutton, 
because he ate freely with his guests; and how his 
calumniators took him through the forest to Treves ; 
and how he performed divers miracles, both on the 
road and in the palace of the Archbishop, notably 
the famous one of hanging his cape upon a sunbeam, 
mistaking it for a peg. And other miracles of his 
there are, some of them not altogether edifying : but 
no reader is bound to believe them, as Wandelbert 
is evidently writing in the interests of the Abbey 
of Prum as against those of the Prince-Bishops of 
Treves ; and with a monk's or regular's usualjealousy 
of the secular or parochial clergy and their bishops. 

A more important personage than any of these 
is the famous St. Benedict, father of the Benedictine 
order, and " father of all monks," as he was afterwards 
called, who, beginning himself as a hermit, caused the 
hermit life to fall, not into disrepute, but into compara- 



248 THE HERMITS. 

tive disuse; while the coenobitic life — that is, life, not 
in separate cells, but in corporate bodies, with common 
property, and under one common rule — was accepted 
as the general form of the religious life in the West. 
As the author of this organization, and of the Bene- 
dictine order, to whose learning, as well as to whose 
piety, the world has owed so much, his life belongs 
rather to a history of the monastic orders than to 
that of the early hermits. But it must be always re- 
membered that it was as a hermit that his genius 
was trained ; that in solitude he conceived his vast 
plans ; in solitude he elaborated the really wise and 
noble rules of his, which he afterwards carried out as 
far as he could during his lifetime in the busy world ; 
and which endured for centuries, a solid piece of prac- 
tical good work. For the existence of monks was an 
admitted fact ; even an admitted necessity : St. Bene- 
dict's work was to tell them, if they chose to be 
monks, what sort of persons they ought to be, and 
how they ought to live, in order to fulfil their own ideal. 
In the solitude of the hills of Subiaco, above the 
ruined palace of Nero, above, too, the town of 
Nurscia, of whose lords he was the last remaining 
scion, he fled to the mountain grotto, to live the 
outward life of a wild beast, and, as he conceived, 
the inward life of an angel. How he founded 
twelve monasteries ; how he fled with some of his 
younger disciples, to withdraw them from the dis- 
gusting persecutions and temptations of the neigh- 
boring secular clergy ; how he settled himself on 
the still famous Monte Cassino, which looks down 



THE HERMITS. 



249 



upon the Gulf of Gaeta, and founded there the 
" Archi-Monasterium of Europe," whose abbot was 
in due time first premier baron of the kingdom of 
Naples, — which counted among its dependencies * four 
bishoprics, two principalities, twenty earldoms, two 
hundred and fifty castles, four hundred and forty 
towns or villages, three hundred and sixty manors, 
twenty-three seaports, three isles, two hundred mills, 
three hundred territories, sixteen hundred and sixty- 
two churches, and at the end of the sixteenth century 
an annual revenue of 1,500,000 ducats, — are matters 
which hardly belong to this volume, which deals 
merely with the lives of hermits. 

* Haef ten, quoted by Montalembert, vol. ii. p. 22, in note. 



*y» 



250 



THE HERMITS. 



THE CELTIC HERMITS. 

It is not necessary to enter into the vexed question 
whether any Christianity ever existed in these islands 
of an earlier and purer type than that which was 
professed and practised by the saintly disciples of 
St. Antony. It is at least certain that the earliest 
historic figures which emerge from the haze of barbar- 
ous antiquity in both the Britains and in Ireland, are 
those of hermits, who, in celibacy and poverty, gather 
round them disciples, found a convent, convert and 
baptize the heathen, and often, like Antony and Hila- 
rion, escape from the bustle and toil of the world 
into their beloved desert. They work the same 
miracles, see the same visions, and live in the same 
intimacy with the wild animals, as the hermits of 
Egypt, or of Roman Gaul : but their history, owing 
to the wild imagination and (as the legends them- 
selves prove) the gross barbarism of the tribes among 
whom they dwell, are so involved in fable and legend, 
that it is all but impossible to separate fact from 
fiction ; all but impossible, often, to fix the time at 
which they lived. 

Their mode of life, it must always be remembered, 
is said to be copied from that of the Roman hermits 



THE HERMITS. 



2 5 ] 



of Gaul. St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, seems 
to have been of Roman or Roman British lineage. 
In his famous "Confession" (which many learned 
antiquaries consider as genuine) he calls his father 
Calphurnius a deacon ; his grandfather, Potitus a 
priest — both of these names being Roman. He is 
said to have visited, at some period of his life, the 
monastery of St. Martin at Tours ; to have studied 
with St. Germanus at Auxerre ; and to have gone to 
one of the islands of the Tuscan Sea, probably Lerins 
itself ; and, whether or not we believe the story that 
he was consecrated bishop by Pope Celestine at Rome, 
we can hardly doubt that he was a member of that 
great spiritual succession of the ascetics who counted 
St. Antony as their father. 

Such another must that Palladius have been, who 
was sent, says Prosper of Aquitaine, by Pope Celes- 
tine to convert the Irish Scots, and who (according to 
another story) was cast on shore on the northeast 
coast of Scotland, founded the church of Fordun, in 
Kincardineshire, and became a great saint among the 
Pictish folk. 

Another primaeval figure, almost as shadowy as 
St. Patrick, is St. Ninian, a monk of North Wales, 
who (according to Bede) first attempted the conver- 
sion of the Southern Picts, and built himself, at 
Whithorn in Galloway, the Candida Casa, or White 
House, a little church of stone, — a wonder in those 
days of " creel houses " and wooden stockades. He 
too, according to Bede, who lived some 250 years after 



252 



THE HERMITS. 



his time, went to Rome ; and he is said to have 
visited and corresponded with St. Martin of Tours. 

Dubricius, again, whom legend makes the contem- 
porary both of St. Patrick and of King Arthur, 
appears in Wales, as bishop and abbot of Llandaff 
He too is ordained by a Roman bishop, St. Germanus 
of Auxerre ; and he too ends his career, according to 
tradition, as a hermit, while his disciples spread away 
into Armorica (Brittany) and Ireland. 

We need not, therefore, be surprised to find Ire- 
land, Wales, Cornwall, Scotland, and Brittany, during 
the next three centuries, swarming with saints, who kept 
up, whether in company or alone, the old hermit-lite of 
the Thebaid ; or to find them wandering, whether on 
missionary work, or in search of solitude, or escaping, 
like St. Cadoc the Wise, from the Saxon invaders. 
Their frequent journeys to Rome, and even to Jeru- 
salem, may perhaps be set down as a fable, invented 
in after years by monks who were anxious to prove 
their complete dependence on the Holy See, and 
their perfect communion with the older and more 
civilized Christianity of the Roman Empire. 

It is probable enough, also, that Romans from 
Gaul, as well as from Britain, often men of rank and 
education, who had fled before the invading Goths and 
Franks, and had devoted themselves (as we have seen 
that they often did) to the monastic life, should have 
escaped into those parts of these islands which had 
not already fallen into the hands of the Saxon inva- 
ders. Ireland, as the most remote situation, would be 
especially inviting to the fugitives ; and we can thus 



THE HERMITS. 



253 



understand the story which is found in the Acts of 
St. Senanus, how fifty monks, " Romans born," sailed 
to Ireland to learn the Scriptures, and to lead a 
stricter life; and were distributed between St. Senan, 
St. Finnian, St. Brendan, St. Barry, and St. Kieran. 
By such immigrations as this, it may be, Ireland 
became, as she certainly was for a while — the refuge 
of what ecclesiastical civilization, learning, and art, 
the barbarian invaders had spared ; a sanctuary 
from whence, in after centuries, evangelists and 
teachers went forth once more, not only to Scotland 
and England, but to France and Germany. Very 
fantastic, and often very beautiful, are the stories of 
these men ; and sometimes tragical enough, like that 
of the Welsh St. Iltut, cousin of the mythic Arthur, 
and founder of the great monastery of Bangor, on the 
banks of the Dee, which was said — though we are not 
bound to believe the fact — to have held more than two 
thousand monks at the time of the Saxon invasion. 
The wild warrior was converted, says the legend, by 
seeing the earth open and swallow up his comrades, 
who had extorted bread, beer, and a fat pig from 
St. Cadoc of Llancarvan, a princely hermit and abbot, 
who had persuaded his father and mother to embrace 
the hermit life as the regular, if not the only, way 
of saving their souls. In a paroxysm of terror he 
fled from his fair young wife into the forest ; would 
not allow her to share with him even his hut of 
branches ; and devoted himself to the labor of making 
an immense dyke of mud and stones to keep out the 
inundations of a neighboring river. His poor wife 



254 THE HERMITS. 

went in search of him once more, and found him 
in the bottom of a dyke, no longer a gay knight, 
but poorly dressed, and covered with mud. She 
went away, and never saw him more : " fearing 
to displease God and onj so beloved by God," Iltut 
dwelt afterwards for four years in a cave, sleeping on 
the bare rock, and seems at last to have crossed over 
to Brittany, and died at Dol. 

We must not forget — though he is not strictly a 
hermit — St. David, the popular saint of the Welsh, 
son of a nephew of the mythic Arthur, and educated 
by one Paulinus, a disciple, it is said, of St. Germanus, 
of Auxerre. He is at once monk and bishop : he 
gathers round him young monks in the wilderness, 
makes them till the ground, drawing the plough by 
their own strength, for he allows them not to own 
even an ox. He does battle against " satraps " and 
" magicians " — probably heathen chieftains and Druids ; 
he goes to the Holy Land, and is made archbishop by 
the Patriarch of Jerusalem ; he introduces, it would 
seem, into this island the right of sanctuary for crim- 
inals in any field consecrated to himself. He restores 
the church of Glastonbury over the tomb of his cousin, 
King Arthur, and dies at ioo years of age, " the head 
of the whole British nation, and honor of his father- 
land." He is buried in one of his own monasteries at 
St. David's near the headland whence St. Patrick had 
seen in a vision, all Ireland stretched out before him, 
waiting to be converted to Christ ; and the Celtic 
people go on pilgrimage to his tomb, even from Brit- 



THE HERMITS 



! 55 



tany and Ireland : and, canonized in 1120, he becomes 
the patron saint of Wales. 

From that same point, in what year is not said, an 
old monk of St. David's monastery, named Modonnoc, 
set sail for Ireland, after a long life of labor and 
virtue. A swarm of bees settled upon the bow of his 
boat, and would not be driven away. He took them 
whether he would or not, with him into Ireland, and 
introduced there, says the legend, the culture of bees 
and the use of honey. 

Ireland was then the " Isle of Saints." Three 
orders of them were counted by later historians : 
the bishops (who seem not to have had necessarily 
territorial dioceses), with St. Patrick at their head, 
shining like the sun ; the second, of priests, under 
St. Columba, shining like the moon ; and the third, 
of bishops, priests and hermits, under Colman and 
Aidan, shining like the stars. Their legends, full of 
Irish poetry and tenderness, and not without touches 
here and there of genuine Irish humor, lie buried 
now, to all save antiquaries, in the folios of the 
Bollandists and Colgan : but the memory of their 
virtue and beneficence, as well as of their miracles, 
shadowy and distorted by the lapse of centuries, is 
rooted in the heart and brain of the Irish peasantry; 
and who shall say altogether for evil ? For with 
the tradition of their miracles has been entwined 
the tradition of their virtues, as an enduring heir- 
loom for the whole Irish race, through the sad 
centuries which part the era of saints from the 
present time. We see the Irish women kneeling 



256 THE HERMITS. 

beside some well, whose waters were hallowed, ages 
since, by the fancied miracle of some mythic saint, and 
hanging gaudy rags (just as do the half savage Bud- 
dhists of the Himalayas) upon the bushes round. We 
see them upon holy days crawling on bare and 
bleeding knees around St. Patrick's cell, on the top of 
Croagh Patrick, the grandest mountain, perhaps, with 
the grandest outlook, in these British Isles, where 
stands still, I believe, an ancient wooden image, said to 
have belonged to St. Patrick himself ; and where, too, 
hung till late years (it is now preserved in Dublin) an 
ancient bell ; such a strange little oblong bell as the 
Irish saints carried with them to keep off demons ; 
one of those magic bells which appear, so far as I am 
aware, in no country save Ireland and Scotland till we 
come to Tartary and the Buddhists : such a bell as 
came down from heaven to St. Senan : such a bell as St. 
Fursey sent flying through the air to greet St. Cuandy 
at his devotions when he could not come himself : 
such a bell as another saint, wandering in the woods, 
rang till a stag came out of the covert, and carried it 
for him on his horns. On that peak, so legends tell, 
St. Patrick stood once, in the spirit and power of 
Elias — after whom the mountain was long named ; 
fasting, like Elias, forty days and forty nights, and 
wrestling with the demons of the storm, and the snakes 
of the fen, and the Peishta-More, the gigantic monster 
of the lakes, till he smote the evil things with the 
golden rod of Jesus, and they rolled over the cliff in 
hideous rout, and perished in the Atlantic far below. 
We know that these tales are but the dreams of chil 



THE HERMITS. 



»57 



dren : but shall we sneer at the devotion of those poor 
Irish ? Not if we remember (what is an undoubted 
fact) that the memory of these same saints has kept 
up in their minds an ideal of nobleness and purity, 
devotion and beneficence, which, down-trodden slaves 
as they have been, they would otherwise have in- 
evitably lost; that it has helped to preserve them 
from mere brutality, and mere ferocity ; and that the 
thought that these men were of their own race" and 
their own kin has given them a pride in their own 
race, a sense of national unity and of national dignity, 
which has endured — and surely for their benefit, for 
reverence for ancestors, and the self-respect which 
springs from it, is a benefit to every human being — 
through all the miseries, deserved or undeserved, 
which have fallen upon the Irish since Pope Adrian 
IV. (the true author of all the woes of Ireland), in 
the year 1155, commissioned Henry II. to conquer 
Ireland and destroy its primaeval Church, on consid- 
eration of receiving his share of the booty in the shape 
of Peter's Pence. 

Among these Irish saints, two names stand out as 
especially interesting : that of St. Brendan, and that 
of St. Colurnba — the former as the representative of 
the sailor monks of the early period, the other as the 
great missionary who, leaving his monastery at Dur- 
row, in Ireland, for the famous island of Hy, Iona, or 
Icolumbkill, of the western point of Mull, became the 
apostle of Scotland and the north of England. I shall 
first speak of St. Brendan, and at some length. His 
name has become lately familiar to many, thought 



*5* 



THE HERMITS. ' 



the medium of two very beautiful poems, one by Mr. 
Matthew Arnold, and the other by Mr. Sebastian 
Evans ; and it may interest those who have read their 
versions of the story to see the oldest form in which 
the story now exists. 

The Celts, it must be remembered, are not, in 
general, a sea-going folk. They have always neg- 
lected the rich fisheries of their coasts ; and in Ireland 
every seaport owes its existence, not to the natives, 
but to Norse colonists. Even now, the Irishman or 
Western Highlander, who emigrates to escape the 
41 Saxons," sails in a ship built and manned by those 
very "Saxons," to land which the Saxons have dis- 
covered and civilized. But in the seventh and eighth 
centuries, and perhaps earlier, many Celts were 
voyagers and emigrants, not to discover new worlds, 
but to flee from the old one. There were deserts in 
the sea, as well as on the land ; in them they hoped 
to escape from men, and, yet more, from women. 

They went against their carnal will. They had 
no liking for the salt water. They were horribly 
frightened, and often wept bi:terly, as they them- 
selves confess. And they had reason for fear ; for 
their vessels were, for the most part, only " curachs "' 
(coracles) of wattled twigs, covered with tanned hide* 
The) needed continual exhortation and comfort from 
the holy man who was their captain ; and needed often 
miracles likewise for their preservation. Tempests 
had to be changed into calm, and contrary winds 
into fair ones, by the prayers of a saint ; and the 
spirit of prophecy was needed, to predict that a whale 



THE HERMITS. 



259 






would be met between Iona and Tiree, who appeared 
accordingly, to the extreme terror of St. Berach's 
crew, swimming with open jaws, and (intent on eat- 
ing, not monks, but herrings) nearly upsetting them 
by the swell which he raised. And when St. Baithe- 
nius met the same whale on the same day, it was 
necessary for him to rise, and bless, with outspread 
hands, the sea and the whale, in order to make him 
sink a- ain, after having risen to breathe. But they 
sailed forth, nevertheless, not knowing whither they 
went; true to their great principle, that the spirit 
must conquer the flesh : and so showed themselves 
actually braver men than the Norse pirates, who sailed 
afterwards over the same seas without fear, and with- 
out the need of miracles, and who found everywhere 
on desert islands, on sea-washed stacks and skerries, 
round Orkney, Shetland, and the Faroes, even to Ice- 
land, the cells of these " papas " or popes ; and named 
them after the old hermits, whose memory still lingers 
in the names of Papa Strona and Papa Westra, in the 
Orkneys, and in that of Papey, off the coast of Ice- 
land, where the first Norse settlers found Irish books, 
bells, and croisers, the relics of old hermits who had 
long since fasted and prayed their last, and migrated 
to the Lord. 

Adanman, in his life of St Columba, tells of more 
than one such voyage. He tells how one Baitanus, 
with the saint's blessing, sailed forth to find " a de- 
sert " in the sea ; and how when he was gone, the 
saint prophesied that he should be buried, not in a 
desert isle, but where a woman should drive sheep 



260 THE HERMITS. 

over his grave, the which came true in the oak-wood 
of Calgaich, now Londonderry, whither he came back 
again. He tells, again, of one Cormac, " a knight of 
Christ," who three times sailed forth in a coracle to 
find some desert isle, and three times failed of his 
purpose ; and how, in his last voyage, he was driven 
northward by the wind fourteen days' sail, till he came 
where the summer sea was full of foul little stinging 
creatures, of the size of frogs, which beat against the 
sides of the frail boat, till all expected them to be 
stove in. They clung, moreover, to the oar blades ; * 
and Cormac was in some danger of never seeing land 
again, had not St. Columba, at home in Iona faraway, 
seen him in a vision, him and his fellows, praying and 
" watering their cheeks with floods of tears," in the 
midst of " perturbations monstrous, horrific, never 
seen before, and almost unspeakable." Calling to- 
gether his monks, he bade them pray for a north 
wind, which came accordingly, and blew Cormac safe 
back to Iona, to tempt the waves no more. " Let the 
reader therefore perpend how great and what manner 
of man this same blessed personage was, who, having 
so great prophetic knowledge, could command, by 
invoking the name of Christ, the winds and ocean." 

Even as late as the year 891, says the Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle : " Three Scots came to King Alfred, in 
a boat without any oars, from Ireland, whence they 
had stolen away, because for the love of God they 

* Dr. Reeves supposes these to have been " Crustacea : " but their 
stinging and clinging prove them surely to have been jelly-fish — 
medusae. 



THE HERMITS. 261 

desired to be on pilgrimage, they recked not where. 
The boat in which they came was made of two hides 
and a half ; and they took with them provisions for 
seven days ; and about the seventh day they came on 
shore in Cornwall, and soon after went to King Alfred. 
Thus they were named, Dubslane, and Macbeth, and 
Maelinmun." 

Out of such wild feats as these ; out of dim reports 
of fairy islands in the west ; of the Canaries and 
Azores ; of that Vinland, with its wild corn and wild 
grapes, which Leif, the son of Eirek Rauda, had found 
beyond the ocean a thousand years and one after the 
birth of Christ ; of icebergs and floes sailing in the 
far northern sea, upon the edge of the six-months' 
night ; out of Edda stories of the Midgard snake, 
which is coiled round the world ; out of reports, it 
may be, of Indian fakirs and Buddhist shamans ; out 
of scraps of Greek and Arab myth, from the Odyssey 
or the Arabian Nights, brought home by "Jorsala 
Farar," vikings who had been for pilgrimage and plun- 
der up the Straits of Gibraltar into the far East, — 
out of all these materials were made up, as years 
rolled on, the famous legend of St. Brendan and his 
seven years' voyage in search of the " land promised 
to the saints." 

This tale was so popular in the middle age, that it 
appears, in different shapes, in almost every early 
European language.* It was not only the delight of 

* I have followed the Lati n prose version of it, which M. Achille 
Jnhinal attributes to the eleventh century. Here and there I have 
taken the liberty of using the French prose version, which he attribute* 
to the latter part of the twelfth. I have often condensed the story, 



2 6 2 THE HERMITS. 

monks, but it stirred up to wild voyages many a sec- 
ular man in search of St. Brendan's Isle, " which is not 
found when it is sought," but was said to be visible at 
times, from Palma in the Canaries. The myth must 
have been well known to Columbus, and may have 
helped to send him forth in search of " Cathay." 
Thither (so the Spanish peasants believed) Don Rod- 
eric had retired from the Moorish invaders. There 
(so the Portuguese fancied) King Sebastian was hid- 
den from men, after his reported death in the battle 
of Alcazar. The West Indies, when they were first 
seen, were surely St. Brendan's Isle: and the Missis- 
sippi may have been, in the eyes of such old adven- 
turers as Don Ferdinando da Soto, when he sought for 
the Fountain of Perpetual Youth, the very river which 
St. Brendan found parting in two the Land of Prom- 
ise. From the year 1526 (says M. Jubinal), till as 
late as 1721, armaments went forth from time to time 
into the Atlantic, and went forth in vain. 

For the whole tale, from whatever dim reports of 
fact they may have sprung, is truly (as M. Jubinal 
calls it) a monkish Odyssey, and nothing more. It is 
a dream of the hermit's cell. No woman, no city, nor 
nation, are ever seen during the seven years' voyage. 

where it was prolix or repeated itself : but I have tried to follow faith- 
fully both matter and style, and to give, word for word, as nearly as I 
could, any notable passages. Those who wish to know more of St. 
Brendan should consult the learned brochure of M. Jubinal, "La 
Legende Latine de St. Brandaines," and the two English versions of 
the Legend, edited by Mr. Thomas Wright for the Percy Society 
vol. xiv. One is in verse, and of the earlier part of the fourteenth 
century, and spirited enough : the other, a prose version, was printed 
by Wynkyn de Worde, in his edition of the " Golden Legend ; " 1527. 



THE HERMITS. 



263 



Ideal monasteries and ideal hermits people the 
" deserts of the ocean. " All beings therein (save 
daemons and Cyclops) are Christians, even to the very 
birds, and keep the festivals of the Church as eternal 
laws of nature. The voyage succeeds, not by seaman- 
ship, or geographic knowledge, nor even by chance : 
but by the miraculous prescience of the saint, or of 
those whom he meets; and the wanderings of Ulysses, 
or of Sinbad, are rational and human in comparison 
with those of St. Brendan. 

Yet there are in them, as was to be expected, ele- 
ments in which the Greek or the Arab legends are 
altogether deficient; perfect innocence, patience, and 
justice: utter faith in God who prospers the inno- 
cent and punishes the guilty; ennobling obedience 
to the saint, who stands out a truly heroic figure 
above his trembling crew ; and even more valuable 
still, the belief in, the craving for, an ideal, even though 
that ideal be that of a merely earthly Paradise ; the 
" divine discontent, " as it has been called, which 
is the root of all true progress ; which leaves (thank 
God) no man at peace save him who has said, " Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. " 

And therefore I have written at some length the 
story of St. Brendan ; because, though it be but a 
monk-ideal, it is an ideal still : and therefore profit- 
able for all who are not content with this world, and 
its paltry ways. 

St. Brendan, we read, the son of Finnloga, and 
great-grandson of Alta, son of Ogaman, of the race 
of Ciar son of Fergus, was born at Tralee, and 



2 g 4 THE HERMITS. 

founded, in 559, the Abbey of Clonfert* and was 
a man famous for his great abstinence and virtues, 
and the father of nearly 3,000 monks.f And while 
he was " in his warfare, " there came to him one even- 
ing a holy hermit named " Barintus, " of the royal 
race of Neill ; and when he was questioned, he did 
nought but cast himself on the ground, and weep and 
pray. And when St. Brendan asked him to make 
better cheer for him and his monks, he told him a 
Strange tale. How a nephew of his had fled away 
to be a solitary, and found a delicious island, and 
established a monastery therein ; and how he himself 
had gone to see his nephew, and sailed with him to 
the eastward to an island, which was called "the land 
of promise of the saints, '" wide and grassy, and bear- 
ing all manner of fruits; wherein was no night, for 
the Lord Jesus Christ was the light thereof ; and 
how they abode there for a long while without eating 
and drinking ; and when they returned to his nephew's 
monastery, the brethren knew well where they had 
been, for the fragrance of Paradise lingered on their 
garments for nearly forty days. 

So Barintus told his story, and went back to his 
cell. But St. Brendan called together his most loving 
fellow-warriors, as he called them, and told them 
how he had set his heart on seeking that Promised 
Land. And lie went up to the top of the hill in 
Kerry, which is still called Mount Brendan, with 

* In the Barony of Longford, County Galway. 

t 3.000. i: .ke 300. seem* to be, I am informed, only an Irish express- 
'«» for a»y Urge number. 



THE HERMITS. 



265 



fourteen chosen monks ; and there, at the utmost 
corner of the world, he built him a coracle of wattle* 
and covered it with hides tanned in Oak-bark and 
softened with butter, and set up in it a mast and a 
sail, and took forty days' provision, and commanded 
his monks to enter the boat, in the name of the Holy 
Trinity. And as he stood alone, praying on the 
shore, three more monks from his monastery came 
up, and fell at his feet, and begged to go too, or they 
would die in that place of hunger and thirst ; for they 
were determined to wander with him all the days of 
their life. So he gave them leave. But two of them, 
he prophesied, would come to harm and to judgment. 
So they sailed away toward the summer solstice, 
with a fair wind, and had no need to row. But after 
twelve days the wind fell to a calm, and they had only 
light airs at night, till forty days were past, and all 
their victual spent. Then they saw toward the north 
a lofty island, walled round with cliffs, and went 
about it three days ere they could find a harbor. 
And when they landed, a dog came fawning on them, 
and they followed it up to a great hall with beds and 
seats, and water to wash their feet. But St. Brendan 
said, " Beware, lest Satan bring you into temptation. 
For I see him busy with one of those three who 
followed us." Now the hall was hung all round with 
vessels of divers metals, and bits and horns overlaid 
with silver. Then St. Brendan told his servant to 
bring the meal which God had prepared ; and at once 
a table was laid with napkins, and loaves, wondrous 
white, and fishes. Then they blessed God, and ate, 



266 THE HERMITS. 

and took likewise drink as much as they would, and 
lay down to sleep. Then St. Brendan saw the devil's 
work ; namely, a little black boy holding a silver bit, 
and calling the brother aforementioned. So they 
rested three days and three nights. But when they 
went to the ship, St. Brendan charged tbem with 
theft, and told what was stolen, and who had 
stolen it. Then the brother cast out of his bosom a 
silver bit, and prayed for mercy. And when he was 
forgiven and raised up from the ground, behold, a little 
black boy flew out of his bosom, howling aloud, and 
crying, " Why, O man of God, dost thou drive me from 
my habitation, where I have dwelt for seven years ? " 

Then the brother received the Holy Eucharist, and 
died straightway, and was buried in that isle, and the 
brethren saw the angels carry his soul aloft, for St. 
Brendan had told him that so it should be : but that 
the brother who came with him should have his 
sepulchre in hell. And as they went on board, a 
youth met them with a basket of loaves and a bottle 
of water, and told them that it would not fail till 
Pentecost. 

Then they sailed again many days, till they came 
to an isle full of great streams and fountains swarm- 
ing with fish ; and sheep there all white, as big as 
oxen, so many that they hid the face of the earth. 
And they stayed there till Easter Eve, and took 
one of the sheep (which followed them as if it had 
been tame) to eat for the Paschal feast. Then came 
a man with loaves baked in the ashes, and other 
victual, and fell down before St. Brendan and cried, 



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267 



" How have I merited this, O pearl of God, that 
thou shouldest be fed at this holy tide from the 
labors of my hand ? " 

And they learned from that man that the sheep 
grew there so big because they were never milked, nor 
pinched with winter, but they fed in those pastures ah 
the year round. Moreover, he told them that they 
must keep Easter in an isle hard by, opposite a shore 
to the west, which some called the Paradise of Birds. 

So to the nearest islard they sailed. It had no 
harbor, nor sandy shore, and there was no turf on it, 
and very little wood. Now the saint knew what 
manner of isle it was, but he would not tell the 
brethren, lest they should be terrified. So he bade 
them make the boat fast, stem and stern, and when 
morning came he bade those who were priests to 
celebrate each a mass, and then to take the lamb's 
fleece on shore and cook it in the caldron with salt, 
while St Brendan remained in the boat. 

But when the fire blazed up, and the pot began to 
boil, that island began to move like water. Then the 
brethren ran to the boat imploring St. Brendan's aid ; 
and he helped them each in by the hand, and cast off. 
After which the island sank in the ocean. And when 
they could see their fire burning more than two miles 
off, St. Brendan told them how that God had revealed 
to him that night the mystery ; that this was no isle, 
but the biggest of all fishes which swam in the ocean, 
and always it tries to make its head and its tail meet, 
but cannot, by reason of its length ; and its name is 
Jasconius. 



268 THE HERMITS. 

Then, across a narrow strait, they saw another 
isle, very grassy and wooded, and full of flowers. 
And they found a little stream, and towed the boat 
up it (for the stream was of the same width as the 
boat), with St. Brendan sitting on board, till they 
came to the fountain thereof. Then said the holy 
father, " See, brethren, the Lord has given us a place 
wherein to celebrate his holy Resurrection. And if 
we had nought else, this fountain, I think, would 
serve for food as well as drink." For the fountain 
was too admirable. Over it was a huge tree of 
wonderful breadth, but no great height, covered with 
snow-white birds, so that its leaves and boughs could 
scarce be seen. 

And when the man of God saw that, he was so 
desirous to know the cause of that assemblage of 
birds, that he sought God upon his knees, with 
tears, saying, " God, who knowest the unknown, and 
revealest the hidden, thou knowest the anxiety of my 
heart. . . . Deign of thy great mercy to reveal to me 
thy secret. . . . But not for the merit of my own 
dignity, but regarding thy clemency, do I presume 
to ask." 

Then one of those birds flew from off the tree, and 
his wings sounded like bells over the boat. And he 
sat on the prow, and spread his wings joyfully, and 
looked quietly on St. Brendan. And when the man 
of God questioned that bird, it told how they were 
of the spirits which fell in the great ruin of the old 
enemy ; not by sin or by consent, but predestined 
by the piety of God to fall with those with whom 



THE HERMITS. 



269 



they were created. But they suffered no punishment ; 
only they could not, in part, behold the presence of 
God. They wandered about this world, like other 
spirits of the air, and firmament, and earth. But on 
holy days they took those shapes of birds, and praised 
their Creator in that place. 

Then the bird told him, how he and his monks had 
wandered one year already, and should wander for 
six more ; and every year should celebrate their 
Easter in that place, and after find the Land of Prom- 
ise ; and so flew back to its tree. 

And when the eventide was come, the birds began 
all with one voice to sing, and clap their wings, crying, 
" Thou, O God, art praised in Zion, and unto Thee 
shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem." And 
always they repeated that verse for an hour, and their 
melody and the clapping of their wings was like music 
which drew tears by its sweetness. 

And when the man of God wakened his monks at 
the third watch of the night with the verse, " Thou 
shalt open my lips, O Lord," all the birds answered, 
" Praise the Lord, all his angels ; praise him, all his 
virtues." And when the dawn shone, they sang again, 
" The splendor of the Lord God is over us ; " and at 
the third hour, " Sing psalms to our God, sing ; sing 
to our King, sing with wisdom." And at the sixth, 
" The Lord hath lifted up the light of his countenance 
upon us, and had mercy on us." And at the ninth # 
" Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to 
dwell in unity." So day and night those birds gave 
praise to God. St. Brendan, therefore, seeing these 



2- THE HERMITS. 

things, gave thanks to God for all his marvels, and 
the brethren were refreshed with that spiritual food 
til; lie octave of Easter. 

After which, St. Brendan advised to take of the 
water of the fountain ; for till then they had only 
used it to wash their feet and hands. But there came 
to him the same man who had been with them three 
davs before Easter, and with his boat full of meat and 
drink, and said, " My brothers, here you have enough 
to last till Pentecost : but do not drink of that foun- 
tain. For its nature is, that whosoever drinks will 
sleep for four-ami-twenty hours." So they stayed till 
Pentecost, and rejoiced in the song of the birds. And 
after mass at Pentecost, the man brought them ood 
again, and bade them take of the water of the foun- 
tain and depart. Then the birds came again, an I sat 
upon the prow, and toll them how they must, every 
year, celebrate Easter in the Isle of Birds, and Easter 
Eve upon the back of the fish Jasconius ; and how, 
after eight months, they should come to the isle called 
Ailbey, and keep their Christmas there. 

After which they were on the ocean for eight 
months, out of sight of land, and only eating alter 
every two or three days, till they came to an island, 
aiong which they sailed for forty days, and found no 
harbor. Then they wept and prayed, for they were 
almost worn out with weariness ; and after they had 
fasted and prayed for three days, they saw a narrow 
harbor, and two fountains, one foul, one clear. But 
when the brethren hurried to draw water, St. Brendan 
(^as he had done once before) forbade them, saying 



THE HERMITS. 



271 



that they must take nought without leave from the 
elders who were in that isle. 

And of the wonders which they saw in that isle it 
were too long to tell : how there met them an ex- 
ceeding old man, with snow-white hair, who fell at 
St. Brendan's feet three times, and led him in silence 
up to a monastery of four-and-twenty silent monks, 
who washed their feet, and fed them with bread and 
water, and roots of wonderful sweetness ; and then at 
last, opening his mouth, told them how that bread was 
sent them perpetually, they knew not from whence; 
and how they had been there eighty years, since the 
times of St. Patrick, and how their father Ailbey and 
Christ had nourished them ; and how they grew no 
older, nor ever fell sick, nor were overcome by cold or 
heat ; and how brother never spoke to brother, but 
all things were done by signs ; and how he led them 
to a square chapel, with three candles before the mid- 
altar, and two before each of the side-altars ; and how 
they, and the chalices and patens, and all the other 
vessels, were of crystal ; and how the candles were 
lighted always by a fiery arrow, which came in through 
the window, and returned ; and how St. Brendan 
kept his Christmas there, and then sailed away till 
Lent, and came to a fruitful island where he found 
fish ; and how when certain brethren drank too much 
of the charmed water they slept, some three days, 
and some one; and how they sailed north, and then 
east, till they came back to the Isle of Sheep at Eas- 
ter, and found on the shore their caldron, which they 
had lost on Jasconius's back ; and how sailing away, 



272 



THE HERMITS. 



they were chased by a mighty fish whi*ch spouted 
foam, but was slain by another fish which spouted 
fire ; and how they took enough of its flesh to last 
them three months ; and how they came to an island 
flat as the sea, without trees, or aught that waved in 
the wind ; and how on that island were three troops 
of monks (as the holy man had foretold), standing a 
stone's throw from each other : the first of boys, robed 
in snow-white; the second of young men, dressed in 
hyacinthine ; the third of old men, in purple dalmatics, 
singing alternately their psalms, all day and night: 
and how when they stopped singing, a cloud of 
wondrous brightness overshadowed the isle ; and how 
two of the young men, ere they sailed away, brought 
baskets of grapes, and asked that one of the monks 
(as had been prophesied) should remain with them, 
in the Isle of Strong Men ; and how St. Brendan 
let him, go, saying, " In a good hour did thy mother 
conceive thee, because thou hast merited to dwell with 
such a congregation ; " and how those grapes were so 
big, that a pound of juice ran out of each of them, and 
an ounce thereof fed each brother for a whole day, and 
was as sweet as honey ; and how a magnificent bird 
dropped into the ship the bough of an unknown tree, 
with a bunch of grapes thereon ; and how they came 
to a land where the trees were all bowed down with 
vines, and their odor as the odor of a house full of 
pomegranates ; and how they fed forty days on those 
grapes, and strange herbs and roots ; and how they 
saw flying against them the bird which is called 
gryphon ; and how the bird who had brought the bough 



THE HERMITS. 



273 



tore out the gryphon's eyes, and slew him ; and how 
they looked down into the clear sea, and saw all the 
fishes sailing round and round, head to tail, innumer- 
able as flocks in the pastures, and were terrified, and 
would have had the man of God celebrate mass in 
silence, lest the fish should hear, and attack them ; 
and how the man of God laughed at their folly ; and 
how they came to a column of clear crystal in the sea, 
with a canopy round it of the color of silver, harder 
than marble, and sailed in through an opening, and 
found it all light within ; * and how they found in that 
hall a chalice of the same stuff as the canopy, and a 
paten of that of the column, and took them, that they 
might make many believe ; and how they sailed out 
again, and past a treeless island, covered with slag and 
forges ; and how a great hairy man, fiery and smutty, 
came down and shouted after them ; and how when 
they made the sign of the Cross and sailed away, he 
and his fellows brought down huge lumps of burning 
slag in tongs, and hurled them after the ship ; and 
how they went back, and blew their forges up, till the 
whole island flared, and the sea boiled, and the howl- 
ing and stench followed them, even when they were 
out of sight of that evil isle ; and how St. Brendan 
bade them strengthen themselves in faith and spiritual 
arms, for they were now on the confines of hell, there- 
fore they must watch, and play the man. All this 
must needs be hastened over, that we may come to 
the famous legend of Judas IscarioL 

They saw a great and high mountain toward the 

* Some dim legend concerning icebergs, and caves therein. 



a74 



THE HERMITS. 



north, with smoke about its peak. And the wind 
blew them close under the cliffs, which were of im- 
mense height, so that they could hardly see their 
top, upright as walls, and black as coal.* Then he 
who remained of the three brethren who had followed 
St. Brendan sprang out of the ship and waded to 
the cliff foot, groaning, and crying, " Woe to me, 
father, for I am carried away from you ; and cannot 
turn back." Then the brethren backed the ship, and 
cried to the Lord for mercy. But the blessed Father 
Brendan saw how that wretch was carried off by a 
multitude of devils, and all on fire among them. 
Then a fair wind blew them away southward ; and 
when they looked back they saw the peak of the 
isle uncovered, and flame spouting from it up to 
heaven, and sinking back again, till the whole moun- 
tain seemed one burning pile. 

After that terrible vision they sailed seven days to 
the south, till Father Brendan saw a dense cloud ; 
when they neared it, a form of a man sitting, and 
before him a veil, as big as a sack, hanging between 
two iron tongs, and rocking on the waves like a boat 
in a whirlwind. Which, when the brethren saw. 
some thought was a bird and some a boat ; but the 
man of God bade them give over arguing, and row 
thither. And when they got near, the waves were 
still, as if they had been frozen ; and they found a 
man sitting on a rough and shapeless rock, and the 
waves beating over his head ; and when they fell 

* Probably ^-om reports of the volcanic coast rJ Veiand. 



THE HERMITS 



75 



back, the bare rock appeared on which that wretch 
was sitting. And the cloth which hung before him 
the wind moved, and beat him with it on the eyes 
and brow. But when the blessed -man asked him 
who he was, and how he had earned that doom, he 
said, " I am that most wretched Judas, who made 
the worst of all bargains. But I hold not this place 
for any merit of my own, but for the ineffable mercy 
of Christ. I expect no place of repentance: but for 
the indulgence and mercy of the Redeemer of the 
world, and for the honor of His holy resurrection, I 
have this refreshment ; for it is the Lord's day now 
and as I sit here I seem to myself in a paradise of 
delight, by reason of the pains which will be mine 
this evening ; for when I am in my pains I burn day 
and night like lead melted in a pot. But in the 
midst of that mountain which you saw, is Leviathan 
with his satellites, and I was there when he swallowed 
your brother ; and therefore the king of hell rejoiced, 
and sent forth huge flames, as he doth always when 
he devours the souls of the impious." Then he told 
them how he had his refreshings there every Lord's 
day from even to even, and from Christmas to 
Epiphany, and from Easter to Pentecost, and from 
the Purification of the Blessed Virgin to her Assump- 
tion : but the rest of his time he was tormented with 
Herod and Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas ; and so 
adjured them to intercede for him with the Lord 
that he might be there at least till sunrise in the 
morn. To whom the man of God said, " The will of 
the Lord be done. Thou shalt not be carried off 



276 THE HERMITS. 

by the daemons till to-morrow." Then he asked 
him of that clothing, and he told how he had given 
it to a leper when he was the Lord's chamberlain ; 
" but because it was no more mine than it was 
the Lord's and the other brethren's, therefore it is of 
no comfort to me, but rather a hurt. And these 
forks I gave to the priests to hang their caldrons on. 
And this stone on which I always sit I took off the 
road, and threw it into a ditch for a stepping-stone, 
before I was a disciple of the Lord." * 

" But when the evening hour had covered the face 
of Thetis," behold a multitude of daemons shouting in 
a ring, and bidding the man of God depart, for else 

* This part of the legend has been changed and humanized as time 
ran on. In the Latin and French versions it has little or no point or 
moral. In the English, Judas accounts for the presence of the cloth 
thus :— 

"Here I may see what it is to give other men's (goods) with harrr. 
As will many rich men with unright all day take, 
Of poor men here and there, and almisse (alms) sithhe (after 
wards) make." 

For the tongs and the stone he accounts by saying that, as he used 
them for " good ends, each thing should surely find him which he did 
for God's love." 

But in the prose version of Wynkyn de Worde, the tongs have been 
changed into " ox-tongues," " which I gave some tyme to two preestes 
to praye for me. I bought them with myne owne money, and there- 
fore they ease me, bycause the fysshes of the sea gnaw on them, and 
spare me." 

This latter story of the ox-tongues has been followed by Mr. Se- 
bastian Evans, in his poem on St. Brendan. Both he and Mr. Mat- 
thew Arnold have rendered the moral of the English version very 
beautifully. 



L 



THE HERMITS. 



! 77 



they could not approach ; and they dared not behold 
their prince's face unless they brought back their 
prey. But the man of God bade them depart. 
And in the morning an infinite multitude of devils 
covered the face of the abyss, and cursed the man of 
God for coming thither ; for their prince had scourged 
them cruelly that night for not bringing back the 
captive. But the man of God returned their curses 
on their own heads, saying that "cursed was he 
whom they blest, and blessed he whom they cursed ; " 
and when they threatened Judas with double torments 
because he had not come back, the man of God 
rebuked them. 

" Art thou, then, Lord of all," they asked, " that 
we should obey thee ?" " I am the servant," said he, 
| of the Lord of all ; and whatsoever I command in 
his name is done ; and I have no ministry save what 
he concedes to me." 

So they blasphemed him till he left Judas, and 
then returned, and carried off that wretched soul 
with great rushing and howling. 

After which they saw a little isle ; and the holy 
man told them that now seven years were nigh past ; 
and that in that isle they should soon see a hermit, 
named Paul the Spiritual, who had lived for sixty 
years without any corporeal food, but for thirty years 
before he had received food from a certain beast. 

The isle was very small, about a furlong round ; a 
bare rock, so steep that they could not find a landing- 
place. But at last they found a creek, into which 
they thrust the boat's bow, and then discovered a very 



278 THE HERMITS. 

difficult ascent. Up that the man of God climbed, 
bidding them wait for him, for they must not enter 
the isle without the hermit's leave ; and when he 
came to the top he saw two caves, with their mouths 
opposite each other, and a very small round well 
before the cave mouth, whose waters, as fast as they 
ran out, were sucked in again by the rock.* As he 
went to one entrance, the old man came out of the 
other, saying, " Behold how good and pleasant it is, 
brethren, to dwell together in unity," and bade him 
call up the brethren from the boat ; and when they 
came, he kissed them, and called them each by his 
name. Whereat they marvelled, not only at his 
spirit of prophecy, but also at his attire ; for he was 
all covered with his locks and beard, and with the 
other hair of his body, down to his feet. His hair 
was white as snow for age, and none other covering 
had he. When St. Brendan saw that, he sighed again 
and again, and said within himself, " Woe is me, sinner 
that I am, who wear a monk's habit, and have many 
monks under me, when I see a man of angelic dignity 
sitting in a cell, still in the flesh, and unhurt by 
the vices of the flesh." To whom the man of God 
answered, "Venerable father, what great and many 
wonders God hath showed thee, which he hath mani- 
fested to none of the fathers, and thou sayst in thy 
heart that thou art not worthy to wear a monk's 
habit. I tell thee, father, that thou art greater than 
a monk ; for a monk is fed and clothed by the work 
of his hands : but God hath fed and clothed thee 

* Copied, surely, from the life of Paul the first hermit. 



THE HERMITS. 2?9 

and thy family for seven years with his secret things, 
while wretched I sit here on this rock like a bird, 
naked save the hair of my body." 

Then St. Brendan asked him how and whence he 
came thither ; and he told how he was nourished in 
St. Patrick's monastery for fifty years, and took care 
of the cemetery ; and how when the dean had bidden 
him dig a grave, an old man, whom he knew not, 
appeared to him, and forbade him, for that grave was 
another man's. And how he revealed to him that he 
was St. Patrick, his own abbot, who had died the 
day before, and bade him bury that brother elsewhere 
and go down to the sea and find a boat, which would 
take him to the place where he should wait for the 
day of his death ; and how he landed on that rock 
and thrust the boat off with his foot, and it went 
swiftly back to its own land ; and- how, on the very 
first day, a beast came to him, walking on its hind- 
paws, and between its fore-paws a fish, and grass to 
make a fire, and laid them at his feet ; and so every 
third day for twenty years ; and every Lord's day a 
little water came out of the rock, so that he could 
drink and wash his hands ; and how after thirty years 
he had found these caves and that fountain, and had 
fed for the last sixty years on nought but the water 
thereof. For all the years of his life were 1 50, and 
henceforth he waited the day of his judgment in that 
his flesh. 

Then they took of that water, and received his 
blessing, and kissed each other in the peace of 
Christ, and sailed southward : but their food was 



2S» THE HERMITS. 

the water from the isle of the man of God. Then 
(as Paul the Hermit had foretold) they came back 
on Easter Eve to the Isle of Sheep, and to him who 
used to give them victuals ; and then went on to the 
fish Jasconius, and sang praises on his back all night, 
and mass at morn. After which the fish carried them 
on his back to the Paradise of Birds, and there they 
stayed till Pentecost. Then the man who always 
tended them, bade them fill their skins from the foun. 
tain, and he would lead them to the land promised to 
the saints. And all the birds wished them a pros- 
perous voyage in God's name ; and they sailed away» 
with forty days' provision, the man being their guide, 
till after forty days they came at evening to a great 
darkness which lay round the Promised Land. But 
after they had sailed through it for an hour, a great 
light shone round them, and the boat stopped at a 
shore. And when they landed they saw a spacious 
land, full of trees bearing fruit as in autumn time. 
And they walked about that land for forty days, 
eating of the fruit and drinking of the fountains, and 
found no end thereof. And there was no night there 
but the light shone like the light of the sun. At last 
they came to a great river, which they could not 
cross, so that they could not find out the extent of 
that land. And as they were pondering over this, a 
youth, with shining face and fair to look upon, met 
them, and kissed them with great joy, calling them 
each by his name, and said, " Brethren, peace be with 
you, and with all that follow the peace of Christ." 
And after that, " Blessed are they who dwell in 



THE HERMITS. 281 

thy house, Lord ; they shall be for ever praising 
thee." 

Then he told St. Brendan that that was the land 
which he had been seeking for seven years, and that 
he must now return to his own country, taking of the 
fruits of that land, and of its precious gems, as much 
as his ship could carry ; for the days of his departure 
were at hand, when he should sleep in peace with his 
holy brethren. But after many days that land should 
be revealed to his successors, and should be a refuge 
for Christians in persecution. As for the river that 
they saw, it parted that island ; and the light shone 
there forever, because Christ was the light thereof. 

Then St. Brendan asked if that land would ever 
be revealed to men : and the youth answered, that 
when the most high Creator should have put all na- 
tions under his feet, then that land should be mani- 
fested to all his elect. 

After which St. Brendan, when the youth had 
blessed him, took of the fruits and of the gems, and 
sailed back through the darkness, and returned to 
his monastery; whom when the brethren saw, they 
glorified God for the miracles which he had heard 
and seen. After which he ended his life in peace. 
Amen. 

Here ends (says the French version) concerning 
St. Brendan, and the marvels which he found in the 
sea of Ireland. 



282 THE HERMITS. 



ST MALO. 

Intermingled, fantastically and inconsistently, with 
the story of St. Brendan, is that of St. Maclovius or 
Machutus who has given his name to the seaport of 
St. Malo, in Brittany. His life, written by Sigebert, 
a monk of Gembloux, about the year i ioo, tells us 
how he was a Breton, who sailed with St. Brendan 
in search of the fairest of all islands, in which the 
citizens of heaven were said to dwell. With St. 
Brendan St. Malo celebrated Easter on the whale's 
back, and with St. Brendan he returned. But 
another old hagiographer Johannes a Bosco, tells 
a different story, making St. Malo an Irishman 
brought up by St. Brendan, and preserved by his 
prayers from a wave of the sea. He gives, more- 
over, to the Isle of Paradise the name of Inga, and 
says that St. Brendan and his companions never 
reached it after all, but came home after sailing 
round the Orkneys and other Northern isles. The 
fact is, that the same saints reappear so often on 
both sides of the British and the Irish Channels, that 
we must take the existence of so many of them as mere 
legend, which has been carried from land to land by 



THE HERMITS. 283 

monks in their migrations, and taken root upon each 
fresh soil which it has reached. One incident in 
St. Malo's voyage is so fantastic, and so grand like- 
wise, that it must not be omitted. The monks come 
to an island whereon they find the barrow of some 
giant of old time. St. Malo, seized with pity for the 
lost soul of the heathen, opens the mound and raises 
the dead to life. Then follows a strange conversation 
between the giant and the saint. He was slain, he 
says, by his kinsmen, and ever since has been tor- 
mented in the other world, In that nether pit they 
know (he says) of the Holy Trinity : but that knowl- 
edge is rather harm than gain to them, because they 
did not choose to know it when alive on earth. There- 
fore he begs to be baptized, and so delivered from his 
pain. He is therefore instructed, catechised, and in 
due time baptized, and admitted to the Holy Com- 
munion. For fifteen days more he remains alive : and 
then, dying once more, is again placed in his sepulchre, 
and left in peace. 

From fragmentary recollections of such tales as 
these (it may be observed in passing) may have 
sprung the strange fancy of the modern Cornish- 
men, which identifies these very Celtic saints of their 
own race with the giants who, according to Geoffrey 
of Monmouth, inhabited the land before Brutus and 
his Trojans founded the Arthuric dynasty. St. Just 
for instance, who is one of the guardian saints of the 
Land's End, and St. Kevern, one of the guardian 
saints of the Lizard, are both giants ; and Cornishmen 
•a few years since would tell how St. Just came from 



2 8 4 THE HERMITS. 

his hermitage by Cape Cornwall to visit St. Kevern 
in his cave on the east side of Goonhilly Downs; and 
how they took the Holy Communion together ; and 
how St. Just, tempted by the beauty of St. Kevern's 
paten and chalice, arose in the night and fled away 
with the holy vessels, wading first the Looe Pool, and 
then Mount's Bay itself ; and how St. Kevern pursued 
him, and hurled after him three great boulders of 
porphyry, two of which lie on the slates and granites 
to this day ; till St. Just, terrified at the might of 
his saintly brother, tossed the stolen vessels ashore 
opposite St. Michael's Mount, and fleeing back to 
his own hermitage, never appeared again in the 
neighborhood of St. Kevern. 

But to return. St. Malo, coming home with St. 
Brendan, craves for peace, and solitude, and the 
hermit's cell, and goes down to the sea-shore, to find 
a vessel which may carry him out once more into the 
infinite unknown. Then there comes by a boat with 
no one in it but a little boy, who takes him on board, 
and carries him to the isle of the hermit Aaron, near 
the town of Aletha, which men call St. Malo now ; 
and then the little boy vanishes away, and St. Malo 
knows that he was Christ himself. Then he lives 
with Aaron, till the Bretons of the neighborhood 
make him their bishop. He converts the idolaters 
around, and performs the usual miracles of hermit 
saints. He changes water into wine, and restores to 
life not only a dead man, but a dead sow likewise, 
over whose motherless litter a wretched slave, who 
has by accident killed the sow with a stone, is 



THE HERMITS. 285 

weeping and wringing his hands in dread of his 
master's fury. While St. Malo is pruning vines, he 
lays his cape upon the ground, and a redbreast comes 
and lays an egg on it. He leaves it there, for the 
bird's sake, till the young are hatched, knowing, says 
his biographer, that without God the Father not a 
sparrow falls to the ground. Hailoch, the prince of 
Brittany, destroys his church, and is struck blind. 
Restored to sight by the saint, he bestows large 
lands on the Church. " The impious generation," who, 
with their children after them, have lost their prop- 
erty by Hailoch's gift, rise against St. Malo. They 
steal his horses, and in mockery leave him only a 
mare. They beat his baker, tie his feet under the 
horse's body, and leave him on the sand to be drowned 
by the rising tide. The sea by a miracle stops a mile 
off, and the baker is saved. 

St. Malo, weary of the wicked Bretons, flees to 
Saintonge in Aquitaine, where he performs yet more 
miracles. Meanwhile, a dire famine falls on the 
Bretons, and a thousand horrible diseases. Penitent, 
they send for St. Malo, who delivers them and their 
flocks. But, at the command of an angel, he returns 
to Saintonge and dies there, and Saintonge has his 
relics, and the inumerable miracles which they work, 
even to the days of Sigebert, of Gembloux. 



286 THE HERMITS. 



ST. COLUMBA. 

The tamous St. Columba cannot perhaps be num- 
bered among the hermits : but as the spiritual father 
of many hermits, as well as many monks, and as one 
whose influence upon the Christianity of these islands 
is notorious and extensive, he must needs have some 
notice in these pages. Those who wish to study his 
life and works at length will of course read Dr. 
Reeves's invaluable edition of Adamnan. The more 
general reader will find all that he need know in Mr. 
Hill Burton's excellent " History of Scotland," chap- 
ters vii. and viii. ; and also in Mr. Maclear's " History 
of Christian Missions during the Middle Ages " — a 
book which should be in every Sunday library. 

St, Columba, like St. David and St. Cadoc of 
Wales, and like many great Irish saints, is a prince 
and a statesman as well as a monk. He is mixed up 
in quarrels between rival tribes. He is concerned, 
according to antiquaries, in three great battles, one of 
which sprang, according to some, from Columba's 
own misdeeds. He copies by stealth the Psalter of 
St. Finnian. St. Finnian demands the copy, saying 
it was his as much as the original. The matter is 



THE HERMITS. 



287 



referred to King Dermond, who pronounces, in high 
court at Tara, the famous decision which has become 
a proverb in Ireland, that " to every cow belongs 
her own calf. "* St. Columba, who does not seem 
at this time to have possessed the dove-like temper 
which his name, according to his disciples, indicates, 
threatens to avenge upon the king his unjust decision. 
The son of the king's steward and the son of the King 
of Connaught, a hostage at Dermond's court, are 
playing hurley on the green before Dermond's palace. 
The young prince strikes the other boy, kills him, and 
flies for protection to Columba. He is nevertheless 
dragged away and slain upon the spot. Columba 
leaves the palace in a rage, goes to his native moun- 
tains of Donegal, and returns at the head of an army 
of northern and western Irish to fight the great battle 
of Cooldrevny in Sligo. But after a while public 
opinion turns against him ; and at the Synod of 
Teltown, in Meath, it is proclaimed that Columba, 
the man of blood, shall quit Ireland, and win for 
Christ out of heathendom as many souls as have 
perished in that great fight. Then Columba, with 
twelve comrades, sails in a coracle for the coast of 
Argyleshire ; and on the eve of Pentecost, a. d. 563, 
lands upon that island which, it may be, will be 
famous to all times as Iona, Hy, or Icolumkill, — 
Hy of Columb of the cells. 

* The famous Cathach, now in the museum of the Royal Irish 
Academy, was long popularly believed to be the very Psalter in ques- 
tion. As a relicof St. Columba it was carried to battle by the 
O'Donnells, even as late as 1497, to insure victory for the clan. 



2 88 THE HERMITS 

Thus had Columba, if the tale be true, undertaken 
a noble penance; and he performed it like a noble 
man. If, according to the fashion of those times, he 
bewailed his sins with tears, he was no morbid or 
selfish recluse, but a man of practical power, and of 
wide humanity. Like one of Homer's old heroes, St. 
Columba could turn his hand to every kind of work. 
He could turn the hand-mill, work on the farm,, heal 
the sick, and command as a practised sailor the little 
fleet of coracles which lay hauled up on the strand of 
Iona, ready to carry him and his monks on their 
missionary voyages to the mainland or the isles. 
Tall, powerful, handsome, with a face which, as 
Adamnan said, made all who saw him glad, and a 
voice so stentorian that it could be heard at times a 
full mile off, and coming too of royal race, it is uo 
wonder if he was regarded as a sort of demigod, not 
only by his own monks, but by the Pictish chiefs to 
whom he preached the Cross. We hear of him at 
Craig Phadrick, near Inverness ; at Skye, at Tiree. and 
other islands ; we hear of him receiving visits from his 
old monks of Derry and Durrow ; returning to Ireland 
to decide between rival chiefs ; and at last dying at 
the age of seventy-seven, kneeling before the altar in 
his little chapel of Iona — a death as beautiful as had 
been the last thirty-four years of his life ; and leaving 
behind him disciples destined to spread the light of 
Christianity over the whole of Scotland and the 
northern parts of England. 

St. Columba, at one period or other of his life, is 
said to have visited a missionary hermit, whose name 



THE HERMITS. 2S9 

still lingers in Scotland as St. Kentigern, or more 
commonly St. Mungo, the patron saint of Glasgow. 
The two men, it is said (but the story belongs to the 
twelfth century, and can hardly be depended on), 
exchanged their crooked staves or crosiers in token 
of Christian brotherhood, and that which St. Columba 
is said to have given to St. Kentigern was preserved 
in Ripon Cathedral to the beginning of the fifteenth 
century But who St. Kentigern was, or what he 
really did, is hard to say ; for all his legends, like 
most of these early ones, are as tangled as a dream. 
He dies in the year 601 : and yet he is the disciple of 
the famous St. Servanus or St. Serf, who lived in the 
times of St. Palladius and St. Patrick, 180 years be- 
fore. This St. Serf is a hermit of the true old type ; 
and even if his story be, as Dr. Reeves thinks, a fabri- 
cation throughout, it is at least a very early one, and 
true to the ideal which had originated with St. An- 
tony. He is brought up in a monastery at Culross : 
he is tempted by the devil in a cave in the parish of 
Dysart (the Desert), in Fifeshire, which still retains 
that name. The daemon, fleeing from him, enters an 
unfortunate man, who is forthwith plagued with a 
wolfish appetite. St. Serf cures him by putting his 
thumb into his mouth. A man is accused of stealing 
and eating a lamb, and denies the theft. St. Serf, 
however, makes the lamb bleat in-the robber's stomach, 
and so substantiates the charge beyond all doubt. He 
works other wonders ; among them the slaying of a 
great dragon in the place called " Dunyne ; " sails for 
the Orkneys, and converts the people there ; and 
19 



2QO 



THE HERMITS. 



vanishes thenceforth into the dreamland from which 
he sprung. 

Two great disciples he has, St. Ternan and St. 
Kentigern ; mystery and miracle hang round the boy- 
hood of the latter. His father is unknown. His 
mother is condemned to be cast from the rock of 
" Dunpelder," but is saved and absolved by a miracle. 
Before the eyes of the astonished Picts, she floats 
gently down through the air, and arrives at the cliff 
foot unhurt. St. Kentigern is thenceforth believed 
to be virgin-born, and is reverenced as a miraculous 
being from his infancy. He goes to school to the 
mythic St. Serf, who calls him Mungo, or the Beloved ; 
which name he bears in Glasgow until this day. His 
fellow-scholars envy his virtue and learning, and try 
to ruin him with their master. St. Serf has a pet 
robin, which is wont to sit and sing upon his shoulder. 
The boys pull off its head, anil lay the blame upon 
Kentigern. The saint comes in wrathful, tawse in 
hand, and Kentigern is for the moment in serious 
danger ; but, equal to the occasion then as afterwards, 
he puts the robin's head on again, sets it singing, and 
amply vindicates his innocence. To this day the 
robin figures in the arms of the good city of Glasgow, 
with the tree which St. Kentigern, when his enemies 
had put out his fire, brought in from the frozen forest 
and lighted with his breath, and the salmon in whose 
mouth a ring which had been cast into the Clyde had 
been found again by St. Kentigern's prophetic spirit. 

The envy of his fellow-scholars, however, is too 
much for St. Kentigern's peace of mind. He wanders 



THE HERMITS. 



291 



away to the spot where Glasgow city now stands, 
lives in a rock hollowed out into a tomb, is ordained 
by an Irish bishop (according to a Celtic custom, 
of which antiquaries have written learnedly, and 
dubiously likewise), and has ecclesiastical authority 
over all the Picts from the Firth of Forth to the 
Roman Wall. But all these stories, as I said before, 
are tangled as a dream ; for the twelfth century monks, 
in their loyal devotion to the see of Rome, are apt to 
introduce again and again ecclesiastical customs which 
belonged to their own time, and try to represent these 
primaeval saints as regular and well-disciplined ser- 
vants of the pope. 

It may be remarked that St. Serf is said to have 
come into a " dysart " or desert. So did many monks 
of the school of St. Columba and his disciples, who 
wished for a severer and a more meditative life than 
could be found in the busy society of a convent. 
"There was a 'disert,'" says Dr. Reeves, "for such 
men to retire to, besides the monastery of Derry, 
and another at Iona itself, situate near the shore in 
the low ground, north of the Cathedral, as may be 
inferred from Portandisiart, the name of a little bay 
in this situation." A similar " disert " or collection of 
hermit cells was endowed at Cashel in 1101 ; and a 
"disert columkill," with two townland mills and a 
vegetable garden, was endowed at Kells, at a some- 
what earlier period, for the use of " devout pilgrims," 
as those were called who left the society of men 
to worship God in solitude. 

The Venerable Bede speaks of as many as three 



292 



THE HERMITS. 



personages, Saxons by their names, who in the Isle of 
Ireland led the " Pilgrim " or anchoritic life, to obtain 
a country in heaven ; and tells of a Drycthelm of the 
monastery at Melrose, who went into a secret dwelling 
therein to give himself more utterly to prayer, and who 
used to stand for hours in the cold waters of the Tweed, 
as St. Godric did centuries afterwards in those of the 
Wear. Solitaries, " recluses," are met with again and 
again in these old records, who more than once became 
Abbots of Iona itself. But there is no need to linger 
on over instances which are only quoted to show that 
some of the noblest spirits of the Celtic Church kept 
up wherever they could the hermit's ideal, the longing 
for solitude, for passive contemplation, for silence and 
perpetual prayer, which they had inherited from St. 
Antony and the Fathers of the Egyptian Desert. 

The same ideal was carried by them over the 
Border into England. Off its extreme northern 
coast, for instance, nearly half-way between Berwick 
and Bamborough Castle, lies as travellers northward 
may have seen for themselves, the " Holy Island," 
called in old times Lindisfarne. A monk's chapel 
on that island was the mother of all the churches 
between Tyne and Tweed, as well as of many 
between Tyne and Humber. The Northumbrians 
had been nominally converted, according to Bede, 
a. d. 627, under their King Edwin, by Paulinus, one 
of the Roman monks who had followed in the steps 
of St. Augustine, the apostle of Kent. Evil times 
had fallen on them. Pen da, at the head of the idol- 
atrous Mercians (the people of Mid-England), and 



THE HERMITS. 



293 



Ceadwalla, at the head of the Western Britons, had 
ravaged the country north of Tweed with savage 
cruelty, slain King Edwin, at Hatfield, near Doncas- 
ter, and exterminated Christianity ; while Palinus had 
fled to Kent, and become bishop of Rochester. The 
invaders had been driven out, seemingly by Oswald, 
who knew enough of Christianity to set up, ere he 
engaged the enemy, a cross of wood on the " Heaven- 
field," near Hexham. That cross stood till the time 
of Bede, some 150 years after ; and had become, like 
Moses' brazen serpent, an object of veneration. For 
if chips cut off from it were put into water, that water 
cured men or cattle of their diseases. 

Oswald, believing that it was through the mercy 
of him whom that cross symbolized he had conquered 
the Mercians and the Britons, would needs reconvert 
his peoples to the true faith. He had been in exile 
during Edwin's lifetime among the Scots, and had 
learned from them something of Christianity. So 
out of Iona a monk was sent to him, Aidan by name, 
to be a bishop over the Northumbrians ; and he set- 
tled himself upon the isle of Lindisfarne, and began 
to convert it into another Iona. " A man he was," 
says Bede, " of singular sweetness, piety, and moder- 
ation ; zealous in the cause of God, though not alto- 
gether according to knowledge, for he was wont to 
keep Easter after the fashion of his country ; " i.e. of 
the Picts and Northern Scots. ..." From that time 
forth many Scots came daily into Britain, and with 
great devotion preached the word to these provinces 
of the English over whom King Oswald reigned. . . . 



-94 



THE HERMITS. 



Churches were built, money and lands were .given of 
the king's bounty to build monasteries ; the English, 
great and small, were by their Scottish masters in- 
structed in the rules and observance of regular dis- 
cipline ; for most of those who came to preach were 
monks." * 

So says the Venerable Bede, the monk of Jarrow, 
and the father (as he has been well called) of English 
history. He tells us, too, how Aidan, wishing, it may 
be supposed, for greater solitude, went away and 
lived on the rocky isle of Fame, some two miles out 
at sea, off Bamborough Castle ; and how, when he saw 
Penda and his Mercians, in a second invasion of 
Northumbria, trying to burn down the walls of Bam- 
borough — which were probably mere stockades of tim- 
ber — he cried to God, from off his rock, to " behold 
the mischief : " whereon the wind changed suddenly, 
and blew the flames back on the besiegers, discomfit- 
ing them, and saving the town. 

Bede tells us, too, how Aidan wandered, preaching 
from place to place, haunting King Oswald's court, but 
owning nothing of his own save his church, and a few 
fields about it ; and how, when death came upon him, 
they set up a tent for him close by the wall at the 
west end of the church, so that it befell that he gave 
up the ghost leaning against a post, which stood out- 
side to strengthen the wall. 

A few years after, Penna came again and burned 
the village, with the church ; and yet neither could 
that fire, nor one which happened soon after, destroy 

* Bede, book iii. cap. 3. 



THE HERMITS. 



295 



that post. Wherefore the post was put inside the 
church as a holy thing, and chips of it, like those 
of the Cross of Heaven Field, healed many folk of 
their distempers. 

... A tale at which we may look in two different 
humors. We may pass it by with a sneer, and a 
hypothesis (which will be probably true) that the 
post was of old heart-of-oak, which is burnt with 
extreme difficulty; or we may pause a moment in 
reverence before the noble figure of the good old 
man, ending a life of unselfish toil without a roof 
beneath which to lay his head ; penniless and com- 
fortless in this world ; but sure of his reward in the 
world to come 

A few years after Aidan's death another hermit 
betook him to the rocks of Fame, who rose to far 
higher glory ; who became, in fact the tutelar saint 
of the fierce Northern men ; who was to them, up to 
the time even of the Tudor monarchs, what Pallas 
Athene was to Athens, or Diana to the Ephesians. 
St. Cuthbert's shrine, in Durham Cathedral (where 
his biographer Bede also lay in honor), was their 
rallying point, not merely for ecclesiastical juris- 
diction or for miraculous cures, but for political 
movements. Above his shrine rose the noble pile 
of Durham. The bishop, who ruled in his name, 
was a Count Palatine, and an almost independent 
prince. His sacred banner went out to battle before 
the Northern levies, or drove back again and again 
the flames which consumed the wooden houses of 
Durham. His relics wrought innumerable miracles ; 



296 THE HERMITS. 

and often he himself appeared with long counten- 
ance, ripened by abstinence, his head sprinkled 
with gray hairs, his casule of cloth of gold, his mitre 
of glittering crystal, his face brighter than the sun, 
his eyes mild as the stars of heaven, the gems upon 
his hand and robes rattling against his pastoral staff 
beset with pearls.* Thus glorious the demigod of 
the Northern men appeared to his votaries, and 
steered with his pastoral staff, as with a rudder, the 
sinking ship in safety to Lindisfarne ; received from 
the hands of St. Brendan, as from a saint of inferior 
powers, the innocent yeoman, laden with fetters, 
whom he had delivered out of the dungeon of Brance- 
peth, and smiting asunder the massive Norman 
walls, led him into the forest, and bade him flee 
to sanctuary in Durham, and be safe ; or visited 
the little timber vine-clad chapel of Lixtune, on 
the Cheshire shore, to heal the sick who watched 
all night before his altar, or to forgive the lad who 
bad robbed the nest which his sacred raven had 
built upon the roof, and, falling with the decayed 
timber, had broken his bones, and maimed his sacri- 
legious hand. 

Originally, says Bede, a monk at Melrose, and 
afterward abbot of the same place, he used to wander 

* These details, and countless stories of St. Cuthbert's miracles, are 
to be found in Reginald of Durham, " De Admirandis Beati Cuth- 
berti," published by the Surtees Society. This curious book is admira- 
bly edited by Mr. J, Raine ; with an English synopsis at the end, 
which enables the reader for whom the Latin is too difficult to enjoy 
those pictures of life under Stephen and Henry II., whether moral, 
religious, or social, of which the book is a rich museum, 



THE HERMITS. 



297 



weeks together out of his monastery, seemingly into 
Ettrick and the Lammermuirs, and preach in such 
villages as " being seated high up among craggy, un- 
couth mountains, were frightful to others even to look 
at, and whose poverty and barbarity rendered them 
inaccessible to other teachers." " So skilful an orator 
was he, so fond of enforcing his subject, and such a 
brightness appeared in his angelic face, that no man 
presumed to conceal from him the most hidden secrets 
of their hearts, but all openly confessed what they 
had done." 

So he labored for many years, till his old abbot 
Eata, who had become bishop and abbot at Lindis- 
farne, sent for him thither, and made him prior of the 
monks for several years. But at last he longed, like 
so many before him, for solitude. He considered (so 
he said afterwards to the brethren) that the life of the 
disciplined and obedient monk was higher than that 
of the lonely and independent hermit : but yet he 
longed to be alone ; longed, it may be, to recall at 
least upon some sea-girt rock thoughts which had 
come to him in those long wanderings on the heather 
moors, with no sound to distract him save the hum of 
the bee and the wail of the curlew ; and so he went 
away to that same rock of Fame, where Aidan had 
taken refuge some ten or fifteen years before, and 
there, with the deep sea rolling at his feet and the 
gulls wailing about his head, he built himself one of 
those " Picts' Houses," the walls of which remain still 
in many parts of Scotland — a circular hut of turf and 
rough stone — and dug out the interior to a depth of 



298 THE HERMITS. 

some feet, and thatched it with sticks and grass ; and 
made, it seems, two rooms within ; one for an oratory, 
one for a dwelling-place : and so lived alone, and wor- 
shipped God. He grew his scanty crops of barley on 
the rock (men said, of course, by miracle) : he had 
tried wheat, but, as was to be expected, it failed. He 
found (men said, of course, by miracle) a spring upon 
the rock. Now and then brethren came to visit him. 
And what did man need more, save a clear conscience 
and the presence of his Creator ? Certainly not 
Cuthbert. When he asked the brethren to bring him 
a beam that he might prop up his cabin where the sea 
had eaten out the floor, and when they forgot the 
commission, the sea itself washed one up in the very 
cove where it was needed : when the choughs from 
the cliff stole his barley and the straw from the roof 
of his little hospice, he had only to reprove them, and 
they never offended again ; on one occasion, indeed 
they atoned for their offence by bringing him a lump 
of suet, wherewith he greased his shoes for many a 
day. 

We are not bound to believe this story ; it is one of 
many which hang about the memory of St. Cuthbert, 
and which have sprung, out of that love of the wild 
birds which may have grown up in the good man 
during his long wanderings through wood and over 
moors. He bequeathed so it was believed) as a 
sacred legacy to the wild-fowl of the Fame islands, 
" St. Cuthbert s peace ; " above all to the eider-ducks, 
which swarmed there in his days, but are now, alas ! 
growing rarer and rarer, from the intrusion of vulgar 



THE HERMITS. 299 

sportsmen who never heard St. Cuthbert's name, or 
learnt from him to spare God's creatures when they 
need them not. On Fame, in Reginald's time, they 
bred under your very bed, got out of your way if you 
made a sign to them, let you take up them or their 
young ones, and nestled silently in your bosom, and 
croaked joyfully with fluttering wings when stroked. 
" Not to nature, but to grace ; not to hereditary ten- 
dency, but only to the piety and compassion of the 
blessed St. Cuthbert," says Reginald, " is so great a 
miracle to be ascribed. For the Lord who made all 
things in heaven and earth has subjected them to the 
nod of his saints, and prostrated them under the feet 
of obedience." Insufficient induction (the cause of 
endless mistakes, and therefore of endless follies and 
crimes) kept Reginald unaware of the now notorious 
fact that the female eider, during the breeding season, 
is just as tame, allowing for a little exaggeration, as 
St. Cuthbert's own ducks are, while the male eider is 
just as wild and wary as any other sea-bird : a mis- 
take altogether excusable in one who had probably 
never seen or heard of eider-ducks in any other spot. 
It may be, nevertheless, that St. Cuthbert's special 
affection for the eider may have been called out by 
another strange and well-known fact about them of 
which Reginald oddly enough takes no note — namely, 
that they line their nests with down plucked from 
their own bosom ; thus realizing the fable which has 
made the pelican for so many centuries the type of the 
Church. It is a question, indeed, whether the pelican, 
which is always represented in mediaeval paintings and 



300 



THE HERMITS. 



sculptures with a short bill, instead of the enormous 
bill and pouch which is the especial mark of the " Ono- 
crotalus " of the ancients, now miscalled pelican, be 
not actually the eider-duck, itself, confounded with the 
true pch'canus, which was the mediaeval, and is still 
the scientific, name of the cormorant. Be that as it 
may, ill befell any one who dare touch one of St. 
Cuthbert's birds, as was proved in the case of Liveing, 
servant to y£lric, who was a hermit in Fame after the 
time of St. Cuthbert. For he, tired it may be of 
barley and dried fish, killed and ate an eider-duck in 
his master's absence, scattering the bones and feathers 
over the cliffs. But when the hermit came back, what 
should he find but those same bones and feathers 
rolled into a lump and laid inside the door of the little 
chapel ; the very sea, says Reginald, not having dared 
to swallow them up. Whereby the hapless Liveing 
being betrayed, was soundly flogged, and put on bread 
and water for many a day ; the which story Liveing 
himself told to Reginald. 

Not only the eider, but all birds in Fame, were pro- 
tected by St. Cuthbert's peace. Bartholomew, who 
was a famous hermit there in after years, had a tame 
bird, says the chronicler, who ate from his hand, and 
hopped about the table among him and his guests, 
till some thought it a miracle ; and some, finding, no 
doubt, the rocks of Fame weary enough, derived 
continual amusement from the bird. But when he 
one day went off to another island, and left his bird 
to keep the house, a hawk came in and ate it up. 
Cuthbert, who could not save the bird, at least could 
17 



THE HERMITS. 



301 



punish the murderer. The hawk flew round and 
round the island, imprisoned, so it was thought, by- 
some mysterious power, till, terrified and worn out, 
it flew into the chapel, and lay, cowering and half 
dead, in the corner by the altar. Bartholomew came 
back, found his bird's feathers, and the tired hawk. 
But even the hawk must profit by St. Cuthbert's 
peace. He took it up, carried it to the harbor, and 
there bade it depart in St. Cuthbert's name, whereon 
it flew off free and was no more seen. Such tales as 
these may be explained, even to the most minute 
details, by simply natural causes : and yet, in this age 
of wanton destruction of wild birds, one is tempted at 
moments to wish for the return of some such graceful 
and humane superstition which would keep down, at 
least in the name of mercy and humanity, the needless 
cruelty of man. 

Bat to return. After St. Cuthbert, says Bede, had 
served God in the solitude of Fame for many years, 
the mound which encompassed his habitation being 
so high that he could see nothing from thence but 
heaven, to which he so ardently aspired, he was 
compelled by tears and entreaties — King Egfrid him- 
self coming to the island, with bishops and religious 
and great men — to become himself bishop in Holy 
Island. There, as elsewhere, he did his duty. But 
after two years he went again to Fame, knowing that 
his end was near. For when, in his episcopal labors, 
he had gone across to Lugubalia — old Penrith, in 
Cumberland — there came across to him a holy hermit, 
Herebert by name, who dwelt upon an island in 



3 02 



THE HERMITS. 



Der went water, and talked with him a long while on 
heavenly things ; and Cuthbert bade him ask him 
then all the questions which he wished to have re- 
solved, for they should see each other no more in this 
world. Herebert, who seems to have been one of his 
old friends, fell at Cuthbert's feet, and bade him 
remember that whenever he had done wrong he had 
submitted himself to him utterly, and always tried to 
live according to his rules ; and all he wished for 
now was that, as they had served God together upon 
earth, they might depart for ever to see his bliss 
in heaven : the which befell ; for a few months after- 
wards, that is, on the twentieth of March, their souls 
quitted their mortal bodies on the same day, and they 
were re-united in spirit. 

St. Cuthbert wished to have been buried on his 
rock in Fame : but the brethren had persuaded him to 
allow his corpse to be removed to Holy Island. He 
begged them, said Bede, should they be forced to 
leave that place, to carry his bones along with them ; 
and so they were forced to do at last ; for in the year 
875, whilst the Danes were struggling with Alfred in 
Wessex, an army of them, with Halfdene at their 
head, went up into Northumbria, burning towns, 
destroying churches, tossing children on their pike- 
points, and committing all those horrors which made 
the Norsemen terrible and infamous for so many years. 
Then the monks fled from the monastery, bearing 
the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and all their treasures, 
and followed by their letainers, men, women, and 
children and their sheep and oxen : behold ! the 



THE HERMITS. 



3°3 



hour of their flight was that of an exceedingly high 
spring tide. The Danes were landing from their 
ships in their rear ; in their front was some two miles 
of sea. Escape seemed hopeless ; when, says the 
legend, the water retreated before the holy relics as 
they advanced ; and became, as to the children of 
Israel of old, a wall on their right hand and on their 
left ; and so St. Cuthbert came safe to shore, and 
wandered in the woods, borne upon his servants' 
shoulders, and dwelling in tents for seven years, and 
found rest at last in Durham, till at the Reformation 
his shrine, and that of the Venerable Bede, were 
robbed of their gold and jewels ; and no trace of them 
(as far as I know) is left, save that huge slab, whereon 
is written the monkish rhyme : — 

Hie jacet in fossa 
Bedae Venerabilis ossa.* 

* " In this hole lie the bones of the Venerable Bede." 



3°4 



THE HERMITS. 



ST. GUTHLAC. 

Hermits dwelling in the wilderness, as far as I am 
aware, were to be seen only in the northern and 
western parts of the island, where not only did the 
forest afford concealment, but the crags and caves 
shelter. The southern and eastern English seldom 
possess the vivid imagination of the Briton, the 
Northumbrian, and the Scot ; while the rich lowlands 
of central, southern, and eastern England, well peopled 
and well tilled, offered few spots lonely enough for 
the hermit's cell. 

One district only was desolate enough to attract 
those who wished to be free from the world, — namely, 
the great fens north of Cambridge ; and there, accord- 
ingly, as early as the seventh century, hermits settled 
in morasses now so utterly transformed ihat it is 
difficult to restore in one's imagination the original 
scenery. 

The fens in the seventh century were probably 
very like the forests at the mouth of the Mississippi, 
or the swampy shores of the Carol inas. Their vast 
plain is now, in summer, one sea of golden corn ; in 
winter, a black dreary fallow, cut into squares by 



THE HERMITS. 



3°S 



stagnant dykes, and broken only by unsightly pumping 
mills and doleful lines of poplar-trees. Of old it was 
a labyrinth of black wandering streams ; broad 
lagoons j morasses submerged every springtide ; vast 
beds of reed and sedge and fern ; vast copses of wil- 
low, alder, and gray poplar, rooted in the floating peat, 
which was swallowing up slowly, all-devouring, yet all- 
preserving, the forests of fir and oak, ash and poplar, 
hazel and yew, which had once grown on that low, 
rank soil, sinking slowly (so geologists assure us) 
beneath the sea from age to age. Trees, torn down 
by flood and storm, floated and lodged in rafts, dam- 
ming the waters back upon the land. Streams, be- 
wildered in the flats, changed their channels, mingling 
silt and sand with the peat-moss. Nature, left to her- 
self, ran into wild riot and chaos more and more, till 
the whole fen became one " Dismal Swamp," in which, 
at the time of the Norman Conquest, the " Last of 
the English," like Dred in Mrs. Stowe's tale, took ref- 
uge from their tyrants, and lived, like him, a free and 
joyous life awhile. 

For there are islands in the sea which have escaped 
the destroying deluge of peat-moss, — outcrops of firm 
and fertile land, which in the early Middle Age were 
so many natural parks, covered with richest grass 
and stateliest trees, swarming with deer and roe, goat 
and boar, as the streams around swarmed with otter 
and beaver, and with fowl of every feather, and fish of 
every scale. 

Beautiful after their kind were those far isles in the 
eyes of the monks who were the first settlers in the 
20 



3 o5 THE HERMITS. 

wilderness. The author of the " History of Ramsey" 
grows enthusiastic, and somewhat bombastic also, as 
he describes the lovely isle, which got its name from 
the solitary ram who had wandered thither, either in 
extreme drought or over the winter ice, and, never 
able to return, was found feeding among the wild deer, 
fat beyond the wont of rams. He tells of the stately 
ashes, most of them cut in his time, to furnish mighty 
beams for the church roof ; of the rich pastures 
painted with all gay flowers in spring ; of the " green 
crown " or reed and alder which encircled the isle ; 
of the fair wide mere (now drained) with its " sandy 
beach " along the forest side ; " a delight," he says, 
*' to all who look thereon." 

In like humor William of Malmesbury, writing in 
the first half of the twelfth century, speaks of Thorney 
Abbey and its isle. " It represents," says he, " a very 
paradise ; for that in pleasure and delight it resembles 
heaven itself. These marshes abound in trees, whose 
length, without a knot, doth emulate the stars. The 
plain there is as level as the sea, alluring the eye with 
its green grass, and so smooth that there is nought to 
trip the foot of him who runs through it. Neither is 
there any waste place ; for in some parts are apples, 
in others vines, which are either spread on the ground, 
or raised on poles. A mutual strife there is between 
Nature and Art ; so that what one produces not the 
other supplies. What shall I say of those fair build- 
ings, which 'tis so wonderful to see the ground among 
those fens upbear ? " 

So wrote William of Malmesbury, after the 



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3°7 



industry and wisdom of the monks, for more than 
four centuries, had been at work to civilize and 
cultivate the wilderness. Yet even then there was 
another side to the picture ; and Thorney, Ramsey, 
or Crowland would have seemed, for nine months 
every year, sad places enough to us comfortable folk 
of the nineteenth century. But men lived hard in 
those days, even the most high-born and luxurious 
nobles and ladies ; under dark skies, in houses 
which we should think, from darkness, draught, and 
want of space, unfit for felon's cells. Hardly they 
lived ; and easily were they pleased ; and thanked 
God for the least gleam of sunshine, the least patch 
of green, after the terrible and long winters of the 
Middle Ages. And ugly enough those winters must 
have been, what with snow and darkness, flood 
and ice, ague and rheumatism ; while through the 
dreary winter's night the whistle of the wind and 
the wild cries of the waterfowl were translated into 
the howls of witches and daemons ; and (as in St. 
Guthlac's case), the delirious fancies of marsh fever 
made those fiends take hideous shapes before the 
inner eye, and act fantastic horrors round the fen- 
man's bed of sedge. 

Concerning this St. Guthlac full details remain, 
both in Latin and Anglo-Saxon ; the author of the 
original document professing to be one Felix, a monk 
of Ramsey near by, who wrote possibly as early as 
the eighth century.* 

* An English translation of the Anglo-Saxon life has been published 
by Mr. Godwin, of Cambridge, and is well worth perusal. 



308 THE HERMITS J 

There we may read how the young warrior-noble 
GuthJac ("The Battle-Play," the "Sport of War") 
tired of slaying and sining, bethought him to fulfil 
the prodigies seen at his birth ; how he wandered 
into the fen, where one Tatwin (who after became a 
saint likewise) took him in his canoe to a spot so 
lonely as to be almost unknown, buried in reeds and 
alders and how he found among the trees nought but 
an old " law," as the Scots still call a mound, which 
men of old had broken into seeking for treasure, and 
a little pond ; and how he built himself a hermit's cell 
thereon, and saw visions and wrought miracles ; and 
how men came to him, as to a fakir or shaman of the 
East : notably one Beccel, who acted as his servant ; 
and how as Beccel was shaving the saint one day 
there fell on him a great temptation : Why should he 
not cut St. Guthlac's throat, and instal himself in his 
cell, that he might have the honor and glory of 
sainthood ? But St. Guthlac perceived the inward 
temptation (which is told with the nave honesty of 
those half-savage times), and rebuked the offender 
into confession, and all went well to the end. 

There we may read, too, a detailed account of the 
Fauna now happily extinct in the fens ; of the crea- 
tures who used to hale St. Guthlac out of his hut, drag 
him through the bogs, carry him aloft through frost 
and fire — " Develin and luther gostes" — such as tor- 
mented in like wise St. Botolph (from whom Botulf- 
ston-Boston, has its name), and who were supposed 
to haunt the meres and fens, and to have an especial 
fondness for old heathen barrows with their fancied 



THE HERMITS. 



3°9 



treasure-hoards : how they " filled the house with their 
coming, and poured in on every side, from above, and 
from beneath, and everywhere. They were in coun- 
tenance horrible, and they had great heads, and a 
long neck, and a lean visage ; they were filthy and 
squalid in their beards, and they had rough ears, and 
crooked ' nebs,' and fierce eyes, and foul mouths ; 
and their teeth were like horses' tusks ; and their 
throats were filled with flame, and they were grating 
in their voice ; they had crooked shanks, and knees 
big and great behind, and distorted toes, and cried 
hoarsely with their voices ; and they came with 
immoderate noise and immense horror, that he 
thought that all between heaven and earth resounded 
with their voices. . . . And they tugged and led 
him out of the cot, and led him to the swart fen, and 
threw and sunk him in the muddy waters. After 
that they brought him into the wild places of the 
wilderness, among the thick beds of brambles that 
all his body was torn. . . . After that they took him 
and beat him with iron whips, and after that they 
brought him on their creaking wings between the cold 
regions of the air." 

But there are gentler and more human touches in 
that old legend. You may read in it how all the 
wild birds of the fen came to St. Guthlac, and he fed 
them after their kind ; how the ravens tormented 
him, stealing letters, gloves, and what not, from his 
visitors ; and then, seized with compunction at his 
reproofs, brought them back, or hanged them on the 
reeds ; and how, as Wilfrid, a holy visitant, was sitting 



3 io THE HERMITS. 

with him, discoursing of the contemplative life, two 
swallows came flying in, and lifted up their song, 
sitting now on the saint's hand, now on his shoulder, 
now on his knee ; and how, when Wilfrid wondered 
thereat, Guthlac made answer, "Know you not that 
he who hath led his life according to God's will, to 
him the wild beasts and the wild birds draw the more 
near ? " 

After fifteen years of such a life, in fever, ague, 
and starvation, no wonder if St. Guthlac died. They 
buried him in a leaden coffin (a grand and expensive 
luxury in the seventh century) which had been sent 
to him during his life by a Saxon princess ; and 
then over his sacred and wonder-working corpse, as 
over that of a Buddhist saint, there arose a chapel, 
with a community of monks, companies of pilgrims 
who came to worship, sick who came to be healed ; 
till at last, founded on great piles driven into the bog, 
arose the lofty wooden Abbey of Crowland ; in " sanct- 
uary of the four rivers," with its dykes, parks, vine- 
yards, orchards, rich ploughlands, from which in time 
of famine, the monks of Crowland fed all people of 
the neighboring fens ; with its tower with seven 
bells, which had not their like in England ; its twelve 
altars rich with the gifts of the Danish vikings and 
princes, and even with twelve white bear-skins, the 
gift of Canute's self ; while all around were the 
cottages of the corrodiers, or folk who, for a corrody, 
or life pittance from the abbey, had given away their 
lands, to the wrong and detriment of their heirs. 

But within those four rivers, at least, were neither 



THE HERMITS. 



3" 



tyranny nor slavery. Those who took refuge in St. 
Guthlac's place from cruel lords must keep his peace 
toward each other, and earn their living like honest 
men, safe while they so did : for between those four 
rivers St. Guthlac and his abbot were the only lords; 
and neither summoner, nor sheriff of the king, nor 
armed forces of knight or earl, could enter — " the in- 
heritance of the Lord, the soil of St. Mary and St. 
Bartholomew, the most holy sanctuary of St. Guthlac 
and his monks ; the minister free from wordly servi- 
tude ; the special almshouse of most illustrious kings ; 
the sole refuge of anyone in worldly tribulation ; the 
perpetual abode of the saints ; the possession of 
religious men, specially set apart by the common 
council of the realm ; by reason of the frequent 
miracles of the holy confessor St. Guthlac, an ever- 
fruitful mother of camphire in the vineyards of 
Engedi ; and, by reason of the privileges granted by 
the kings, a city of grace and safety to all who 
repent." 

Does not all this sound like a voice from another 
planet ? It is all gone ; and it was good and right 
that it should go when it had done its work, and 
that the civilization of the fen should be taken up 
and carried out by men like the good knight, Richard 
of Rulos, who two generations after the Conquest, 
marrying Hereward's granddaughter, and becoming 
Lord of Deeping (the deep meadow), thought that he 
could do the same work from the hall of Bourne as the 
monks did from their cloisters ; got permission from 
the Crowland monks, for twenty marks of silver, 



3 I2 



"HE HERMITS. 



to drain as much as he could of the common marshes ; 
and then shut out the Welland by strong dykes, built 
cottages, marked out gardens, and tilled fields, till 
" out of slough and bogs accursed, he made a garden 
of pleasure." 

Yet one lasting work those monks of Crowland 
seem to have done, besides those firm dykes and rich 
cornlands of the Porsand, which endure unto this day. 
For within two generations of the Norman conquest, 
while the old wooden abbey, destroyed by fire, was 
being replaced by that noble pile of stone whose ruins 
are still standing, the French Abbot of Crowland (so 
runs the legend) sent French monks to open a school 
under the new French donjon, in the little Roman 
town of Grante-brigge ; whereby — so does all earnest 
work, however mistaken, grow and spread in this 
world, infinitely and for ever — St. Guthlac, by his 
canoe-voyage into Crowland Island, became the 
spiritual father of the University of Cambridge in the 
old world; and therefore of her noble daughter, the 
University of Cambridge, in the new world which 
fen-men sailing from Boston deeps colonized and 
Christianized 800 years after St. Guthlac's death. 



THE HERMITS. 



m 



ST. GODRIC OF FINCHALE. 

A personage quite as interesting, though not as 
famous, as Cuthbert or Guthlac, is St. Godric ; the 
hermit around whose cell rose the Priory of Finchale, 
In a loop of the river Wear, near Durham, there 
settled in the days of Bishop Flambard, between 1099 
and 1 128, a man whose parentage and history was for 
many years unknown to the good folks of the neigh- 
borhood. He had come, it seems from a hermitage 
in Eskdale, in the parish of Whitby, whence he had 
been driven by the Percys, lords of the soil. He 
had gone to Durham, become the doorkeeper of 
St. Giles's church, and gradually learnt by heart 
(he was no scholar) the whole Psalter. Then he 
had gone to St. Mary's church, where (as was the 
fashion of the time) there was a children's school; 
and, listening to the little ones at their lessons, 
picked up such hymns and prayers as he thought 
would suffice his spiritual wants. And then, by leave 
of the bishop, he had gone away into the woods, 
and devoted himself to the solitary life in Finchale. 

Buried in the woods and crags of the " Royal Park,'* 



3i4 



'I HE HERMITS. 



as it was then called, which swarmed with every kind 
of game, there was a little flat meadow, rough with 
sweet gale and bramble and willow, beside a teeming 
salmon-pool. Great wolves haunted the woods ; but 
Godric cared nought for them ; and the shingles 
swarmed with snakes, — probably only the harmless 
collared snakes of wet meadows, but reputed, as all 
snakes are by the vulgar, venomous : but he did not 
object to become "the companion of serpents and 
poisonous asps." He handled them, caressed them, 
let them lie by the fire in swarms on winter nights in 
the little cave which he had hollowed in the ground 
and thatched with turf. Men told soon how the 
snakes obeyed him ; how two especially huge ones 
used to lie twined about his legs ; till after many 
years, annoyed by their importunity, he turned them 
all gently out of doors, with solemn adjurations never 
to return, and they, of course, obeyed. 

His austerities knew no bounds. He lived on 
roots and berries, flowers and leaves ; and when the 
good folk found him out, and put gifts of food 
near his cell, he carried them up to the crags above, 
and, offering them solemnly up to the God who feeds 
the ravens when they call on him, left them there 
for the wild birds. He watched, fasted, and scourged 
himself, and wore always a hair shirt and an iron 
cuirass. He sat, night after night, even in mid winter, 
in the cold Wear, the waters of which had hollowed 
out a rock near by into a natural bath, and afterwards 
in a barrel sunk in the floor of a little chapel of 
wattle, which he built and dedicated to the blessed 



THE HERMITS. 315 

Virgin Mary. He tilled a scrap of ground, and ate 
the grain from it, mingled with ashes. He kept his 
food till it was decayed before he tasted it ; and led a 
life the records of which fill the reader with astonish- 
ment, not only at the man's iron strength of will, 
but at the iron strength of the constitution which 
could support such hardships, in such a climate, for a 
single year. 

A strong and healthy man must Godric have been, 
to judge from the accounts (there are two, both 
written by eye-witnesses) of his personal appearance — 
a man of great breadth of chest and strength of arm ; 
black-haired, hook-nosed, deep-browed, with flashing 
gray eyes ; altogether a personable and able man, who 
might have done much work and made his way in many 
lands. But what his former life had been he would 
not tell. Mother-wit he had in plenty, and showed 
insight into men and things which the Monks of Dur- 
ham were ready enough to call the spirit of prophecy.. 
After awhile it was whispered that he wrought miracu- 
lous cures : that even a bit of the bread which he 
was wont to eat had healed a sick woman ; that he 
fought with daemons in visible shape ; that he had 
seen (just as one of the old Egyptian hermits had seen) 
a little black boy running about between two monks 
who had quarrelled and come to hard blows and 
bleeding faces because one of them had made mis- 
takes in the evening service : and, in short, there were 
attributed to him, during his lifetime, and by those 
who knew him well, a host of wonders which would 
be startling and important were they not exactly 



3 i6 THE HERMITS. 

the same as those which appear in the life of every 
hermit since St. Antony. It is impossible to read 
the pages of Reginald of Durham (for he, the biog- 
rapher of St. Cuthbert, is also the biographer of St. 
Godric). without feeling how difficult it is to obtain 
anything like the truth, even from eye-witnesses, if 
only men are (as they were in those days) in a state 
of religious excitement, at a period of spiritual 
revivals. The ignorant populace were ready to 
believe, and to report anything of the Fakeer of 
Finchale. The monks of Durham were glad enough 
to have a wonder-working man belonging to them ; 
for Ralph Flambard, in honor of Godric, had made 
over to them the hermitage of Finchale, with 
its fields and fisheries. The lad who, in after years, 
waited on the hermit, would have been ready enough 
to testify that his master saw daemons and other 
spiritual beings ; for he began to see them on his 
own account ; * fell asleep in the forest coming home 
from Durham with some bottles ; was led in a vision 
by St. John the Baptist to the top of a hill, and 
shown by him wonders unspeakable; saw, on another 
occasion, a daemon in St. Godric's cell, hung all over 
with bottles of different liquors, offering them to the 
saint, who bade the lad drive him out of the little 
chapel, with a holy water sprinkle, but not go out- 
side it himself. But the lad, in a fury of successful 
pursuit, overstepped the threshold ; whereon the 
demon, turning in self-defence, threw a single drop 
of one of his liquors into the lad's mouth, and 
* Vita S. Godrici, pp. 332, 333. 



THE HERMITS. 



T 7 



vanished with a laugh of scorn. The boy's face and 
throat swelled horribly for three days ; and he took 
care thenceforth to obey the holy man more strictly : 
a story which I have repeated, like the one before 
it, only to show the real worth of the evidence on 
which Reginald has composed his book. Ail red, 
Abbot of Rievaux (for Reginald's book, though 
dedicated to Hugh Pudsey, his bishop, was prompted 
by Ailred) was capable (as his horrible story of the 
nun of Watton proves) of believing anything and 
everything which fell in with his fanatical, though 
pious and gentle, temper. 

And here a few words must be said to persons 
With whose difficulties I deeply sympathize, but from 
whose conclusions I differ utterly : those, namely, 
who say that if we reject the miracles of these 
saints' lives, we must reject also the miracles of the 
New Testament. The answer is, as I believe, that 
the Apostles and Evangelists were sane men : men 
in their right minds, wise, calm ; conducting them- 
selves (save in the matter of committing sins) like 
other human beings, as befitted the disciples of that 
Son of Man who came eating and drinking, and 
was therefore called by the ascetics of his time a 
gluttonous man and a wine-bibber : whereas these 
monks were not (as I have said elsewhere) in their 
right minds at all. 

This is, or ought to be, patent to any one who will 
compare the style of the Apostles and Evangelists 
with that of the monkish hagiologists. The calm, 
the simplicity, the brevity, the true grandeur of the 



3 i8 THE HERMITS. 

former is sufficient evidence of their healthy-minded- 
ness and their trustworthiness. The affectation, the 
self-consciousness, the bombast, the false grandeur of 
the latter, is sufficient evidence that they are neither 
healthy-minded or trustworthy. Let students com- 
pare any passage of St. Luke or St. John, however 
surprising the miracle which it relates, with St. 
Jerome's life of Paul the First Hermit, or with that 
famous letter of his to Eustochium, which (although 
historically important) is unfit for the eyes of pure- 
minded readers and does not appear in this volume : 
and let them judge for themselves. Let them 
compare, again, the opening sentence of the Four 
Gospels, or of the Acts of the Apostles, with the 
words with which Reginald begins this life of St. 
Godric: '* By the touch of the Holy Spirit's finger 
the chord of the harmonic human heart resounds 
melodiously. For when the vein of the heart is 
touched by the grace of the Holy Spirit, forthwith, 
by the permirific sweetness of the harmony, an 
exceeding operation of sacred virtue is perceived 
more manifestly to spring forth. With this sweet- 
ness of spirit, Godric, the man of God, was filled 
from the very time of his boyhood, and grew famous 
for many admirable works of holy work (sic), because 
the harmonic teaching of the Holy Spirit fired the 
secrets of his very bosom with a wondrous contact 
of spiritual grace : " — and let them say, after the com- 
parison, if the difference between the two styles is not 
that which exists between one of God's lilies, fresh 
from the field, and a tawdry bunch of artificial flowers ? 



THE HERMITS: ^9 

But to return. Godric himself took part in the 
history of his own miracles and life. It may be that 
he so overworked his brain that he believed that he 
was visited by St. Peter, and taught a hymn by the 
blessed Virgin Mary, and that he had taken part in 
a hundred other prodigies ; but the Prologue to the 
Harleian manuscript (which the learned Editor, Mr. 
Stevenson, believes to be an early edition of Reginald's 
own composition) confesses that Reginald, compelled 
by Ailred of Rievaux, tried in vain for a long while 
to get the hermit's story from him. 

" You wish to write my life ? " he said. " Know 
then that Godric's life is such as this : Godric, at 
first a gross rustic, an unclean liver, an usurer, a 
cheat, a perjurer, a flatterer, a wanderer, pilfering and 
greedy ; now a dead flea, a decayed dog, a vile worm, 
not a hermit, but a hypocrite ; not a solitary, but a 
gad-about in mind ; a devourer of alms, dainty over 
good things, greedy and negligent, lazy and snoring, 
ambitious and prodigal, one who is not worthy to 
serve others, and yet every day beats and scolds 
those who serve him : this, and worse than this, you 
may write of Godric." " Then he was silent as one 
indignant," says Reginald, " and I went off in some 
confusion," and the grand old man was left to himself 
and to his God. 

The ecclesiastical Boswell dared not mention the 
subject again to his hero for several years, though he 
came after from Durham to visit him, and celebrate 
mass for him in his little chapel. After some years, 
however, he approached the matter again ; and 



3 2 ° 



THE HERMITS. 



whether a pardonable vanity had crept over Godric, 
or whether he had begun at last to believe in his 
miracles, or whether the old man had that upon his 
mind of which he longed to unburthen himself, he 
began to answer questions, and Reginald delighted 
to listen and note down till he had finished, he says, 
that book of his life and miracles ;* and after awhile 
brought it to the saint, and falling on his knees, begged 
him to bless, in the name of God, and for the benefit 
of the faithful, the deeds of a certain religious man, 
who had suffered much for God in this life which he 
(Reginald) had composed accurately. The old man 
perceived that he himself was the subject, blessed 
the book with solemn words (what was written therein 
he does not seem to have read), and bade Reginald 
conceal it till his death, warning him that a time would 
come when he should suffer rough and bitter things 
on account of that book, from those who envied 
him. That prophecy, says Reginald, came to pass ; 
but how, or why, he does not tell. There may 
have been, among those shrewd Northumbrian heads 
even then, incredulous men, who used their common 
sense. 

But the story which Godric told was wild and 
beautiful ; and though we must not depend too much 
on the accuracy of the old man's recollections, or on 
the honesty of Reginald's report, who would naturally 
omit all incidents which made against his hero's per- 
fection, it is worth listening to, as a vivid sketch of 

* The earlier one; that of the Harleian MSS. which (Mr. Steven 
Son thinks) was twice afterwards expanded and decorated by him. 



THE HERMITS. 



321 



the doings of the real human being, in that misty 
distance of the Early Middle Age. 

He was born, he said, at Walpole, in Norfolk, on 
the old Roman sea-bank, between the Wash and the 
deep Fens. His father's name was ^Eilward : his 
mother's ^Edwen — " the Keeper of Blessedness, ". and 
" the Friend of Blessedness, " as Reginald translates 
them — poor and pious folk ; and, being a sharp boy, 
he did not take to field-work, but preferred wandering 
the fens as a peddler, first round the villages, then, as 
he grew older, to castles and to towns, buying and 
selling— what, Reginald does not tell us : but we 
should be glad to know. 

One day he had a great deliverance, which Regi- 
nald thinks a miracle. Wandering along the great 
tide-flats near Spalding and the old Well -stream, 
in search of waifs and strays, of wreck or eatables, he 
saw three porpoises stranded far out upon the banks. 
Two were alive, and the boy took pity on them (so. 
he said) and let them be : but one was dead, and off 
it (in those days poor folks ate anything) he cut as 
much flesh and blubber as he could carry, and toiled 
back toward the high-tide mark. But whether he 
lost his way among the banks, or whether he delayed 
too long, the tide came in on him up to his knees, his 
waist, his chin, and at last, at times, over his head. The 
boy made the sign of the Cross (as all men in danger 
did then) and struggled on valiantly a full mile 
through the sea, like a brave lad never loosening his 
hold of his precious porpoise-meat till he reached the 
shore at the very spot from which he had set out. 
21 



322 THE HERMITS. 

As he grew, his peddler journeys became longer. 
Repeating to himself, as he walked, the Creeds and the 
Lord's Prayer— his only lore — he walked for four 
years through Lindsey ; then went to St. Andrew's 
in Scotland; after that, for the first time, to Rome. 
Then the love of a wandering sea life came on him, 
and he sailed with his wares round the east coasts ; not 
merely as a peddler, but as a sailor himself, he went to 
Denmark and to Flanders, buying and selling, till he 
owned (in what port we are not told, but probably in 
Lynn or Wisbeach) half one merchant ship and the 
quarter of another. A crafty steersman he was, a 
wise weather-prophet, a shipman stout in body and 
in heart, probably such a one as Chaucer tells us of 
350 years after : — 

" — A dagger hanging by a las hadde hee 
About his nekke under his arm adoun. 
The hote summer hadde made his hewe al broun. 
And certainly he was a good felaw ; 
Full many a draught of wine he hadde draw, 
From Burdeaux ward, while that the chapmen slepe, 
Of nice conscience took he no kepe. 
If that he fought, and hadde the higher hand, 
By water he sent hem home to every land. 
But of his craft to recken wel his tides, 
His stremes and his strandes him besides, 
His herberwe, his mone, and his lode manage, 
There was none swiche, from Hull unto Carthage. 
Hardy he was, and wise, I undertake: 
With manv a tempest hadde his berd be shake. 
He knew wel alle the havens, as they were, 
From Gotland to the Cape de Finisterre, 
And every creke in Bretagne and in Spain." 



THE HERMITS. 323 

But gradually there grew on the stout merchant- 
man the thought that there was something more to 
be done in the world than making money. He 
became a pious man after the fashion of those days. 
He worshipped at the famous shrine of St. Andrew. 
He worshipped, too, at St. Cuthberts's hermitage at 
Fame, and there, he said afterwards, he longed for 
the first time for the rest and solitude of the hermitage. 
He had been sixteen years a seaman now, with a 
seaman's temptations — it may be (as he told Reginald 
plainly) with some of a seaman's vices. He may 
have done things which lay heavy on his conscience. 
But it was getting time to think about his soul. 
He took the cross, and went off to Jerusalem, as 
many a man did then, under difficulties incredible, 
dying, too often, on the way. But Godric not only 
got safe thither, but went out of his way home by 
Spain to visit the sanctuary of St. James of Com- 
postella, a see which Pope Calixtus II. had just raised 
to metropolitan dignity. 

Then he appears as steward to a rich man in the 
Fens, whose sons and young retainers, after the law- 
less fashion of those Anglo-Norman times, rode out 
into the country round to steal the peasants' sheep 
and cattle, skin them on the spot, and pass them off 
to the master of the house as venison taken in hunt- 
ing. They ate and drank, roystered and rioted, like 
most other young Normans ; and vexed the staid 
soul of Godric, whose nose told him plainly enough, 
whenever he entered the kitchen, that what was 
roasting had never come off a deer. In vain he pro- 



3 2 4 



THE HERMITS 



tested and warned them, getting only insults for his 
pains. At last he told his lord. The lord, as was to 
be expected, cared nought about the matter. Let 
the lads rob the English villains : for what other end 
had their grandfathers conquered the land ? Godric 
punished himself, as he could not punish them, for 
the unwilling share which he had had in the wrong. 
It may be that he, too, had eaten of that stolen food. 
So away he went into France, and down the Rhone, 
on pilgrimage to the hermitage of St. Giles, the patron 
saint of the wild deer ; and then on to Rome a second 
time, and back to his poor parents in the Fens. 

And now follows a strange and beautiful story. All 
love of seafaring and merchandise had left the deep- 
hearted sailor. The heavenly and the eternal, the 
salvation of his sinful soul, had become all in all to 
him ; and yet he could not rest in the little dreary 
village on the Roman bank. He would go on pilgrim- 
age again. Then his mother would go likewise, and 
see St. Peter's church, and the pope, and all the 
wonders of Rome, and have her share in all the 
spiritual blessings which were to be obtained (so men 
thought then)at Rome alone. So off they set on 
foot ; and when they came to ford or ditch, Godric 
carried his mother on his back, until they came to 
London town. And there ^Edwen took off her shoes, 
and vowed out of devotion to the holy apostles Peter 
and Paul (who, so she thought, would be well pleased 
at such an act) to walk barefoot to Rome and bare- 
foot back again. 

Now just as they went out of London, on the 



LI 



THE HERMITS. 32^ 

Dover road, there met them in the way the loveliest 
maiden they had ever seen, and asked to bear them 
company in their pilgrimage. And when they agreed, 
she walked with them, sat with them, and talked 
with them with superhuman courtesy and grace ; and 
when they turned into an inn, she ministered to them 
herself, and washed and kissed their feet, and then 
lay down with them to sleep, after the simple fashion 
of those days. But a holy awe of her, as of some 
saint and goddess, fell on the wild seafarer ; and he 
never, so he used to aver, treated her for a moment 
save as a sister. Never did either ask the other 
who they were, and whence they came ; and Godric 
reported (but this was long after the event) that no one 
of the company of pilgrims could see that fair maid, 
save he and his mother alone. So they came safe 
to Rome, and back to London town ; and when they 
were at the place outside "South wark, where the fair 
maid had met them first, she asked permission to 
leave them, for she " must go to her own land, where 
she had a tabernacle of rest, and dwelt in the house 
of her God." And then, bidding them bless God, who 
had brought them safe over the Alps, and across the 
sea, and all along that weary road, she went on her 
way, and they saw her no more. 

Then with this fair mysterious face clinging to his 
memory, and it may never be leaving it, Godric took 
his mother safe home, and delivered her to his father, 
and bade them both after awhile farewell, and wan. 
dered across England to Penrith, and hung about 
the churches there, till some kinsmen of his recog- 



326 THE HERMITS. 

nized him, and gave him a psalter (he must have 
taught himself to read upon his travels), which he 
learnt by heart. Then, wandering ever in search of 
solitude, he went into the woods and found a cave, 
and passed his time therein in prayer, living on green 
herbs and wild honey, acorns and crabs ; and when 
he went about to gather food, he fell down on his 
knees every few yards and said a prayer, and rose 
and went on. 

After awhile he wandered on again, until at Wol- 
singham, in Durham, he met with another holy hermit, 
who had been a monk at Durham, living in a cave in 
forests in which no man dare dwell, so did they 
swarm with packs of wolves ; and there the two good 
men dwelt together till the old hermit fell sick, and 
was like to die. Godric nursed him, and sat by him, 
to watch for his last breath. For the same longing 
had come over him whiah came over Marguerite 
d'Angouleme when she sat by the dying bed of her 
favorite maid of honor — to see if the spirit, when it 
left the body, were visible, and what kind of thing it 
was : whether, for instance, it was really like the little 
naked babe which is seen in mediaeval illuminations 
flying out of the mouths of dying men. But, worn 
out with watching, Godric could not keep from sleep. 
All but despairing of his desire, he turned to the 
dying man, and spoke, says Reginald, some such 
words as these : — " O spirit ! who art diffused in that 
body in the likeness of God, and art still inside 
that breast, I adjure thee by the Highest, that thou 
leave not the prison of this thine habitation while I 



THE HERMITS. 



3 2 7 



am overcome by sleep, and know not of it." And so 
he fell asleep : but when he woke, the old hermit lay 
motionless and breathless. Poor Godric wept, called on 
the dead man, called on God ; his simple heart was 
set on seeing this one thing. And, behold, he was 
consoled in a wondrous fashion. For about the third 
hour of the day the breath returned. Godric hung 
over him, watching his lips. Three heavy sighs he 
drew, then a shudder, another sigh : * and then (so 
Godric was believed to have said in after years) he 
saw the spirit flit. 

What it was like, he did not like to say, for the 
most obvious reason — that he saw nothing, and was 
an honest man. A monk teased him much to impart 
to him this great discovery, which seemed to the 
simple untaught sailor a great spiritual mystery, and 
which was, like some other mediaeval mysteries which 
were miscalled spiritual (transubstantiation above all), 
altogether material and gross imaginations. Godric 
answered wisely enough, that " no man could per- 
ceive the substance of the spiritual soul." 

But the monk insisting, and giving him no rest, he 
answered, — whether he wished to answer a fool ac- 
cording to his folly, or whether he tried to fancy (as 
men will who are somewhat vain — and if a saint was 
not vain, it was no fault of the monks who beset him) 
that he had really seen something. He told how it was 

* Reginald wants to make " a wonder incredible in our own 
times," of a very common form (thank God) of peaceful death. He 
makes miracles in the same way of the catching of salmon and of 
otters, simple enough to one who, like Godric, knew the river, and 
every wild thing which haunted it. 



3 jS THE HERMITS, 

like a dry, hot wind rolled into a sphere, and shining, 
like the clearest glass, but that what it was really like 
no one could express. Thus much, at least, may be 
gathered from the involved bombast of Reginald. 

Another pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre did 
Godric make before he went to the hermitage in 
Eskdale, and settled finally at Finchale. And there 
about the hills of Judaea he found, says Reginald, 
hermits dwelling in rock-caves, as they had dwelt 
since the time of St. Jerome. He washed himself 
and his hair shirt and little cross, in the sacred waters 
of the Jordan, and returned, after incredible suffering, 
to become the saint of Finchale. 

His hermitage became, in due time, a stately 
priory, with its community of monks, who looked up 
to the memory of their holy father Godric as to that 
of a demigod. The place is all ruinate now ; the 
memory of St. Godric gone ; and not one in ten thou- 
sand, perhaps, who visit those crumbling walls beside 
the rushing Wear, has heard of the sailor-saint, and 
his mother, and that fair maid who tended them on 
their pilgrimage. 

Meanwhile there were hermits for many years in 
that same hermitage in Eskdale, from which a Percy 
expelled St. Godric, possibly because he interfered 
with the prior claim of some ptotege of their own ; for 
they had, a few years before Godric's time, granted 
that hermitage to the monks of Whitby, who were 
not likely to allow a stranger to establish himself on 
their ground. 

About that hermitage hung one of those stories so 
19 



the HEjt&iirs. 



329 



common in the Middle Ages, in which the hermit ap- 
pears as the protector of the hunted wild beast ; 
a story, too, which was probably authentic, as the 
curious custom which was said to perpetuate its 
memory lasted at least till the year 1753. I quote it 
at length from Burton's " Monasticon Eboracense," 
p. 78, knowing no other authority. 

" In the fifth year of the reign of King Henry II. 
after the conquest of England by William, duke of 
Normandy, the Lord of Uglebardby, then called 
William de Bruce, and the Lord of Sneton, called 
Ralph de Perci, with a gentleman and a freeholder 
called Allatson, did on the sixteenth day of October 
appoint to meet and hunt the wild boar, in a certain 
wood or desert place belonging to the abbot of the 
monastery of Whitby ; the place's name is Eskdale- 
side ; the abbot's name was Sedman. Then these 
gentlemen being met, with their hounds and boar- 
staves, in the place before-named, and there having 
found a great wild boar, the hounds ran him well near 
about the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale-side, where 
was a monk of Whitby, who was a hermit. The boar 
being very sore, and very hotly pursued, and dead 
run, took in at the chapel door and there died : 
whereupon the hermit shut the hounds out of the 
chapel, and kept himself within at his meditations 
and prayers, the hounds standing at bay without. 
The gentlemen in the thick of the wood, being put 
behind their game, followed the cry of their hounds, 
and so came to the hermitage, calling on the hermit, 
who opened the door and came forth, and within they 



330 THE HERMITS. 

found the boar lying dead, for which the gentlemen 
in very great fury (because their hounds were put 
from their game) did most violently and cruelly run 
at the hermit with their boar-staves, whereby he died 
soon after : thereupon the gentlemen, perceiving and 
knowing that they were in peril of death, took sanc- 
tuary at Scarborough. But at that time the abbot, 
being in very great favor with King Henry, removed 
them out of the sanctuary, whereby they came in 
danger of the law, and not to be privileged, but likely 
to have the severity of the law, which was death. But 
the hermit, being a devout and holy man, at the point 
of death sent for the abbot, and desired him to send 
for the gentlemen who had wounded him : the abbot 
so doing, the gentlemen came, and the hermit, being 
very sick and weak, said unto them, ' I am sure to die 
of those wounds you have given me.' The abbot 
answered, 'They shall as surely die for the same;' 
but the hermit answered, ' Not so, for I will freely 
forgive them my death, if they will be contented to 
be enjoined this penance for the safeguard of their 
souls.' The gentlemen being present, and terrified 
with the fear of death, bade him enjoin what penance 
he would, so that he would but save their lives. 
Then said the hermit, 'You and yours shall hold your 
lands of the Abbot of Whitby and his successors 
in this manner : That upon Ascension Eve, you or 
some of you shall come to the woods of the Strag 
Heads, which is in Eskdale-side, the same day at sun- 
rising, and there shall the abbot's officer blow his horn, 
to the intent that you may know how to find him 






THE HERMITS. 



33 ' 



and he shall deliver unto you, William de Bruce, ten 
stakes, eleven strut-towers, and eleven yethers, to be 
cut by you or some for you, with a knife of one penny 
price ; and you, Ralph de Perci, shall take twenty and 
one of each sort, to be cut in the same manner ; and 
you, Allatson, shall take nine of each sort, to be cut as 
aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs, and carried 
to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine 
of the clock the same day before-mentioned ; at the 
same hour of nine of the clock (if it be full sea) your 
labor or service shall cease ; but if it be not full sea, 
each of you shall set your stakes at the brim, each 
stake one yard from the other, and so yether them on 
each side of your yethers, and so stake on each side 
with' your strut-towers, that they may stand three 
tides without removing by the force thereof : each of 
you shall do, make, and execute the said service at 
that very hour every year, except it shall be full sea 
at that hour : but when it shall so fall out, this service 
shall cease. You shall faithfully do this in remem- 
brance that you did most cruelly slay me ; and that 
you may the better call to God for mercy, repent 
unfeignedly for your sins, and do good works, the 
officers of Eskdale-side shall blow, Out on you, out on 
you, out on you, for this heinous crime. If you or your 
successors shall refuse this service, so long as it shall 
not be full sea at the aforesaid hour, you or yours 
shall forfeit your lands to the Abbot of Whitby, or 
his successors. This I intreat, and earnestly* beg 
that you may have lives and goods preserved for this 
service ; and I request of you to promise by your 



332 



7J/E HERMITS. 



parts in heaven that it shall be done by you and 
your successors, as it is aforesaid requested, and I will 
confirm it by the faith of an honest man.' Then the 
hermit said ' My soul longeth for the Lord, and I do 
as freely forgive these men my death as Christ for- 
gave the thieves upon the Cross ; ' and in the presence 
of the abbot and the rest he said, moreover, these 
words : ' Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my 
spirit, for from the bonds of death Thou hast re- 
deemed me, O Lord of truth. Amen.' So he yielded 
up the ghost the eighth day of December, a. d. 1160, 
upon whose soul God have mercy. Amen." 



THE HERMITS, 



333 



ANCHORITES. 

STRICTLY SO CALLED. 

The fertile and peaceable lowlands of England, 
as T have just said, offered few spots sufficiently wild 
and lonely for the habitation of a hermit ; those, 
therefore, who wished to retire from the world into 
a more strict and solitary life than that which the 
monastery afforded were in the habit of immuring 
themselves, as anchorites, or in old English " Ankers," 
in little cells of stone, built usually against the wall 
of a church. There is nothing new under the sun ; 
and similar anchorites might have been seen in Egypt, 
500 years before the time of St. Antony, immured in 
cells in the temples of Isis or Serapis. It is only re- 
cently that antiquaries have discovered how common 
this practice was in England, and how frequently the 
traces of these cells are to be found about our parish 
churches. They were so common in the Diocese of 
Lincoln in the thirteenth century, that in 1233 the 
archdeacon is ordered to inquire whether any 
anchorites' cells had been built without the bishop's 
.leave; and in many of our parish churches may be 
seen, either on the- north or the south side of the 
chancel, a narrow slit in the wall, or one of the lights 



334 THE HERMITS. 

of a window prolonged downwards, the prolongation, 
if not now walled up, being closed with a shutter. 
Through these apertures the " incluse," or anker, 
watched the celebration of mass, and partook of the 
Holy Communion. Similar cells were to be found 
in Ireland, at least in the diocese of Ossory ; and 
doubtless in Scotland also. Ducange, in his Glossary, 
on the word " inclusi," lays down rules for the size of 
the anker's cell, which must be twelve feet square, with 
three windows, one opening into the church, one for 
taking in his food, and one for light ; and the 
" Salisbury Manual " as well as the " Pontifical " of 
Lacy, Bishop of Exeter, in the first half of the fifteenth 
century, contains a regular " service " for the walling 
in of an anchorite.* There exists too a most singular 
and painful book, well known to antiquaries, but to 
them alone, " The Ancren Riwle," addressed to three 
young ladies who had immured themselves (seemingly 
about the beginning of the thirteenth century) at 
Kingston Tarrant, in Dorsetshire. 

For women as well as men entered these living 
tombs ; and there spent their days in dirt and starva- 
tion, and such prayer and meditation doubtless as 
the stupified and worn-out intellect could compass ; 
their only recreation being the gossip of the neigh- 
boring women, who came to peep in through the 
little window — a recreation in which (if we are to 
believe the author of "The Ancren Riwle") they 

* That of the Salisbury Manual is published in the " Ecclesiolo- 
gist" for August 1848, by the Rev. Sir W. H. Cope, to whom I am 
indebted for the greater number of these curious facts. 



THE HERMITS. 



335 



were tempted to indulge only too freely ; till the window 
of the recluse's cell, he says, became what the smith's 
forge or the alehouse has become since — the place 
where all the gossip and scandal of the village passed 
from one ear to another. But we must not believe 
such scandals of all. Only too much in earnest must 
those seven young maidens have been, whom St. 
Gilbert of Sempringham persuaded to immure them- 
selves, as a sacrifice acceptable to God, in a den 
along the north wall of his church ; or that St. Hutta 
or Huetta, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
who after ministering to lepers, and longing and even 
trying to become a leper herself, immured herself for 
life in a cell against the church of Huy near Liege. 

Fearful must have been the fate of these incluses 
if any evil had befallen the building of which (one 
may say) they had become a part. More than one 
in the stormy Middle Age may have suffered the 
fate of the poor women immured beside St. Mary's 
church at Mantes, who, when town and church were 
burnt by William the Conqueror, unable to escape 
(or, according to William of Malmesbury, thinking it 
unlawful to quit their cells even in that extremity), 
perished in the flames ; and so consummated once and 
for all their long martyrdom. 

How long the practice of the hermit life was 
common in these islands is more than my learning 
enables me to say. Hermits seem, from the old Char- 
tularies,* to have been not unfrequent in Scotland and 

* I owe these facts to the courtesy of Mr. John Stuart, of thq 
General Register Office, Edinburgh. 



3 j6 THE HERMITS. 

the North of England during the whole Middle Age. 
We have seen that they were frequent in the times of 
Malcolm Canmore and the old Celtic Church ; and 
the Latin Church, which was introduced by St. Mar- 
garet, seems to have kept up the fashion. In the 
middle of the thirteenth century, David de Haigh 
conveyed to the monks of Cupar the hermitage which 
Gilmichael the Hermit once held, with three acres of 
land. In 1329 the Convent of Durham made a grant 
of a hermitage to Roger Eller at Norham on the 
Tweed, in order that he might have a "fit place to 
fight with the old enemy and bewail his sins, apart 
from the turmoil of men." In 1445 James the Second, 
king of Scots, granted to John Smith the hermitage 
in the forest of Kilgur, " which formerly belonged in 
heritage to Hugh Cominch the Hermit, and was 
resigned by him, with the croft and the green be- 
longing to it, and three acres of arable land." 

I have quoted these few instances, to show how 
long the custom lingered ; and doubtless hermits 
were to be found in the remoter parts of these realms 
when the sudden tempest of the Reformation swept 
away alike the palace of the rich abbot and the 
cell of the poor recluse, and exterminated through- 
out England the ascetic life. The two last hermits 
whom I have come across in history are both figures 
which exemplify very well those times of corruption 
and of change. At Loretto (not in Italy, but in 
Musselburgh, near Edinburgh) there lived a hermit 
who pretended to work miracles, and who it seems 
had charge of some image of " Our Lady of Loretto." 



THE HERMITS. 



33*7 



The scandals which ensued from the visits of young 
folks to this hermit roused the wrath of that terrible 
scourge of monks, Sir David Lindsay of the Mount : 
yet as late as 1536, James the Fifth of Scotland 
made a pilgrimage from Stirling to the shrine, in 
order to procure a propitious passage to France in 
search of a wife. But in 1543, Lord Hertford, during 
his destructive voyage to the Forth, destroyed, with 
other objects of greater consequence, the chapel of 
the " Lady of Lorett," which was not likely in those 
days to be rebuilt ; and so the hermit of Musselburgh 
vanishes from history. 

A few years before, in 1537, says Mr. Froude, * 
while the harbors, piers, and fortresses were rising in 
Dover, " an ancient hermit tottered night after night 
from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers 
on the altar before which he knelt in his lonely 
orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling 
waters. The men of the rising world cared little for 
the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told 
sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal 
to the King's enemies" (a Spanish invasion from 
Flanders was expected), " and must burn no more ; 
and, when it was next seen, three of them waylaid 
the old man on his way home, threw him down and 
beat him cruelly." 

So ended, in an undignified way, as worn out 
institutions are wont to end, the hermit life in the 
British Isles. Will it ever reappear ? Who can tell ? 

* " History of England," vol. iii. p. 256, note. 

2* 






338 HERMITS. 

To an age of luxury and unbelief has succeeded, 
more than once in history, an age of remorse and 
superstition. Gay gentlemen and gay ladies may 
renounce the world, as they did in the time of St. 
Jerome, when the world is ready to renounce them. 
We have already our nunneries, our monasteries, of 
more creeds than one ; and the mountains of Kerry, 
or the pine forests of the Highlands, may some day 
once more hold hermits, persuading themselves to 
believe, and at last succeeding in believing, the teach- 
ing of St. Antony, instead of that of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and of that Father of the spirits of all flesh, 
who made love, and marriage, and little children, 
sunshine and flowers, the wings of butterflies and the 
song of birds ; who rejoices in his own works, and 
bids all who truly reverence him rejoice in them with 
him. The fancy may seem impossible. It is not 
more impossible than many religious phenomena 
seemed forty years ago, which are now no fancies, 
but powerful facts. 

The following books should be consulted by those 
who wish to follow out this curious subject in 
detail : — 

The"Vitae Patrum Eremiticorum." 

The "Acta Sanctorum." The Bollandists are, of 
course, almost exhaustive of any subject on which 
they treat. But as they are difficult to find, save in 
a few public libraries, the "Acta Sanctorum'' of 
Surius, or of Aloysius Lipommasius, may be profit- 
ably consulted. Butler's " Lives of the Saints" is a 
book common enough, but of no great value. 



THE HERMITS. 33^ 

M. de Montalembert's " Moines d'Occident," and 
Ozanam's " Etudes Germaniques," may be read with 
much profit. 

Dr. Reeves' edition of Adamnan's " Life of St. 
Columba," published by the Irish Archaeological and 
Celtic Society, is a treasury of learning, which needs 
no praise of mine. 

The lives of St. Cuthbert and St. Godric may 
be found among the publications of the Surtees 
Society. 



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By SIR WALTER SCOTT, Bart. 



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Printed from ]arge, clear type, new electrotype plates, uniform in 
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A. & C. Black, Edinburgh), and contains many notes and 
last alterations by the author, not found in any edition printed 
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LIBRARY EDITION.— 24 Volumes. 



I. Waverley. 
II. Woodstock, 

III. QUENTIN DURWARD. 

IV. Black Dwarf, and Old 

Mortality. 
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and Legend of Mont- 
rose. 
VI. Chronicles of the Canon- 
gate, &c. 
VTI. Kendiworth. 
Vin. St. Bonan's Well. 
IX. Guy Mannering. 
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Library Edition.- 
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XLI. Heart of Midlothian. 
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XIV. The Talisman. 
XV. The Abbot. 
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XVII. Fortunes of Nigel. 
XVIII. Count Eobert of Paris. 
XIX. Bedgauntlet. 
XX. The Pirate. 
XXI. Pair Maid of Perth. 
XXII. The Antiquary. 

XXIII. Peverdl of the Peak. 

XXIV. The Betrothed. 



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Woodstock. 
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Old Mortality. 
Quentin Durward. 
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Legend of Montrose. 
Chronicles of the Canon- 
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iv. kenil worth. 

St. Bonan's Well. 
V. Guy Mannering. 

Anne of Geierstein. 

12 volumes. 12mo. Cloth, gilt, 
12 " " Half calf. 



12 Volumes. 
VI. Bob Boy. 

Heart of Midlothian. 
VII. Ivanhoe. 

The Talisman. 
VIII. The Abbot. 

The Monastery. 
IX. Fortunes of Nigel. 

Count Eobert of Paris. 
X. Bedgauntlet. 

The Pirate. 

XI. Pads Maid of Perth. 

The Antiquary. 

XII. Peveril of the Peak. 

The Betrothed. 

$18.00 
- 36.00 



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COMPLETE WORKS 



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Price per volume, - - 

Of 15 volume's, doth, gilt, in neat paper DDK, 

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HI. Martin Chczzlewit, 840 
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tery of Edwin Dkood, 888 
pages. 
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mebcial Traveller, and 
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XIV. Ciiri-tma- Stories, and KE 
printed Pieces, 840 pages. 
XV Child's IIlSTORY of Eni.lan e. 
and Miscellaneous, 831 
pages. 



V The Child's History ov England is also published 
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PRICES. 

11 volumes, 12mo., about 800 pages each, cloth, - - $16 50 
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I. VANITY FAIR. 
II. THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS. 
HI. THE NEWCOMES. 
IV. THE VIRGINIANS. 
V. THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP, to which is prefixed A SHABBY 
GENTEEL STORY. 
AT. HENRY ESMOND, CATHARINE, DENNIS DUVAL, AND LOVEL 

THE WIDOWER. 
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Vin. BARRY LYNDON, GREAT IIOGGARTY DIAMOND, ETC. : 



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LOVE LUS LIB RARY. 

Under the title of " LoveU's Library; a Weekly Publication," the 
■adersigned have commenced the publication of all the best works in 
Purrent and Standard Literature. 

The Contents of each number •will be taken more especially from the 
Fast field of Fiction, including, besides all the Standard works, the best 
current Literature of the day ; the leading works in History, Biography, 
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First. — The type will be larger and the print consequently clearer. 

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Third. — Each number will have a handsome paper cover ; and this, 
connection with the size, will make it worthy of preservation. 

NUMBERS NOW READY: 



Hyperion, by Longfellow, . . .20 
Outre-Mer, by Longfellow, . . .20 
The Happy Boy, by Bjornson . .10 

Arne, by Bjornson, 10 

Frankenstein, by Mrs. Sbelley, .10 
The Last of the Mohicans, . . .20 
Clytie, by Joseph Hatton, . . .20 
The Moonstone, by Wilkie Col- 
lins, Parti, 10 

Do. Part II, 10 

Oliver Twist, by Dickens, . . .20 
The Coming Race : or the New 

Utopia, by Lord Lytton, . . .10 
Leila ; or the Siege of Granada, 

by Lord Lytton, 10 

The Three Spaniards, by George 

Walker .20 

The Tricks of the Greeks Unveil- 
ed, by Robert Houdin, . . .20 
L'Abbe Constantin, by Ludovic 
Halevy, Author of "La Fille 

de Mme. Angot," etc 20 

Freckles, by Rebecca Fergus 
RedclifE. A new original 
Story, ,....,... .20 
The Dark Colleen, by Mrs. Rob- 
ert Buchanan, 20 

They Were Married ! by Walter 

Besant and James Rice, . . 

Seekers after God, by Canon 

Farrar, D.D., 

The Spanish Nun, by Thos. De 
Quincey, ........ 



10 



10 



21. The Green Mountain Boys, by 

Judge D. P. Thompson, . . .20 

22. Fleurette, by Eugene Scribe, . .20 

23. Second Thoughts, by Rhoda ■ 

Broughton 20 

24. The New Magdalen, by Wilkie 

Collins, 20 

25. Divorce, by Margaret Lee, . . .20 

26. Life of Washington, by Leonard 
Henley, 20 

27. Social Etiquette, by Mrs. W. A. 

Saville 15 

28. Single Heart and Double Face, 

by Chas. Reade, 10 

29. Irene : or the Lonely Manor, by 

CarlDetlef 20 

30. Vice Versa, by F. Anstey, . . .20 

31. Ernest Maltravers, by Lord 

Lytton .20 

32. The Haunted House and Cal- 

deron the Courtier, by Lord 
Lytton, 10 

33. John Halifax, by Miss Mulock, .20 

34. 800 Leagues on the Amazon, by 

Jules Verne, f .10 

35. The Cryptogram, by Jules Verhe .10 

36. Life of Marion, by Horry and 

Weems, 20 

37. Paul and Virginia, 10 

38. Tale of Two Cities, by Charles 

Dickens, 20 

39. The Hermits, by Rev. Charles 

Kingsley, 20 



Many of the above are also bound handsomely in cloth, gilt, price 
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JOHN W. LOVELLCO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey St., New York. 



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